


I am delighted to inform you

by butternugget



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, Graduation, Light Angst, M/M, OT12 (EXO), Rich Kim Jongin | Kai, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24502342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butternugget/pseuds/butternugget
Summary: Kyungsoo’s just trying to graduate high school, but in the carefully balanced equation that was his life, he had never accounted for the school’s resident future millionaire heartthrob to become his new favorite unknown variable.Meanwhile, Baekhyun sobs over Korean dramas and sexy cars, and Sehun loves his pet dog and bubble tea a little too much. Chanyeol’s always full of bad ideas, Luhan is a class-A drama queen, Yifan would rather change his name to Kris than be productive, and Junmyeon is just trying to hold it all together. Oh, and Jongdae copies his English papers off of Sparknotes, much to Minseok’s chagrin, and Yixing just wants everyone to be happy. His wish might just come true.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol, Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongin | Kai, Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Wu Yi Fan | Kris, Lu Han/Oh Sehun
Comments: 27
Kudos: 73





	1. Make a Wish

Kyungsoo’s eighteenth birthday began with a bang. And, after a momentary pause, a shower of tiny shreds of glitter and colored paper spiraled through the air to settle between the strands of his fluffy brown hair.

Looking up, the boy leaning against Kyungsoo’s locker with a used party popper in hand was none other than Byun Baekhyun. One of the greatest sources of joy and entertainment in his life, or perhaps the greatest irritant, depending on when you asked. (But Kyungsoo loved him anyways. Just maybe not in this moment.)

“Happy birthday!” Baekhyun practically shrieked, producing a poorly-wrapped box from behind his back and shoving it into Kyungsoo’s hands. Beside him, Sehun clutched the strings of an assortment of penguin-shaped helium balloons and leaned over to tie them to Kyungsoo’s backpack.

Kyungsoo tried, and failed, to suppress a smile. “Thanks, guys,” he said appreciatively, accepting the box that Baekhyun proffered to him, fingers stroking the satin of the blue ribbon and the jagged misaligned edges of the glittery gift wrap. “I told you that I didn’t want you to do anything for my birthday, though.”

Baekhyun huffed. “And you really thought that we’d listen to you?”

“We did what you wanted for the past three years, and we don’t know if we’ll be together for your birthday next year,” Sehun agreed, reaching out to nudge Kyungsoo’s side. “Assuming that we all make it to graduation. Now open your present! But not too fast, I spent an hour wrapping that thing.”

Inside the box was a pouch of dog treats, a polaroid of the three of them from a movie night a few weeks back, and two slips of paper. The first one was— “a ticket to this year’s winter formal,” Sehun grinned. “You’re not getting out of it this time.”

Accompanying it was a hand-drawn coupon, offering “one free makeover, by yours truly, Baekhyun xoxo”. 

“And you said this was supposed to be a _present_ ,” Kyungsoo grumbled, smiling despite himself, depositing the box into his locker and attempting a dramatic exit. Rather unfortunately, his sudden pivot on his heel combined with the ever-treacherous force of inertia caused him to become tangled himself in the strings of his penguin balloons, tripping over himself in an effort not to fall flat on his face. As he struggled to right himself, he could barely resist the urge to glare at his friends, both of whom had long since collapsed into a pile of stupid amongst peals of laughter. 

Happy birthday, indeed.

❅❆❅

Kyungsoo dreaded calculus class. It wasn’t so much because of the subject itself, because shockingly, he actually enjoyed integrating functions and finding the area between two curves. His best friends made sure to take advantage of this fact, and it was likely this friendship that would see Sehun through to graduation— sometimes Kyungsoo thought that the boy would fit in better at the local kindergarten than at high school, based on his love for sugar (and consequential hyperactivity) and inability to do basic algebra. Luckily, Kyungsoo had been blessed with a “math brain,”; instead, what he struggled with was finding the area between himself and his seatmate, who was often pressed so closely to his side that the solution to the question “What is the area between poor Kyungsoo and creepy, sweaty, Park Chanyeol?” was zero.

That morning, he settled into his assigned seat with a sigh, grateful that his sticky elf boy neighbour had yet to show up. As he laid out the numerous highlighters in his Pororo pencil case on his desk, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone slide into the seat that usually remained empty to his left. More than just a _someone_ , Kyungsoo mused, as he willed himself to clear his face of all traces of expression, his large brown eyes flitting between the other boy’s sharp jawline and the perfectly white leather of his Gucci sneakers. Definitely a dress code violation, but the boy himself looked nothing short of a walking felony.

“Hi, I’m Kim Jongin,” his new seatmate(?) introduced himself, offering a smile. Kyungsoo was glad that Sehun had convinced him to wear his contacts today, or he might have inadvertently given Jongin The Death Glare™ in an attempt to get a closer look at him. And as much as he hated to say it, he could see why the annoying girls in the cafeteria were always tittering away about him. From what he gathered, the other boy usually sat near the back of the classroom while Kyungsoo was allocated to the first row, and he was glad for the fact that he had never had to witness constant flirtation first hand. Even though Jongin famously never gave in to _anyone’s_ advances, he was still extremely popular, and Kyungsoo didn’t want to be reduced to just another member of his fan club. 

“I’m Kyungsoo,” he replied quietly, fighting to keep his expression neutral.

The taller boy looked away, fingers fidgeting with a tiny bear keychain hanging off of his backpack. Jongin was dressed in the classic school-issued white button up, but the skinny tie pressed down the middle of his chest was undoubtedly Gucci, not that Kyungsoo was very well versed in the fashion world, evidenced by the fact that Jongin somehow managed to make everything look designer while he simply shrugged on whatever articles of clothing happened to be on sale at the department store. (Needless to say, not designer.)

“I hope it’s okay if I sit here today? I forgot to put my contacts on, and I need to see the board so I don’t fail tomorrow’s test, I won’t bother you, I promise!” Jongin rushed out.

“Go ahead,” came Kyungsoo’s clipped response. Perhaps Ms. Park would have something to say about the sudden disruption of her seating chart, but teachers all loved Jongin anyways. And though he could already feel the glares of Jongin’s hordes of fangirls who would probably jump at the opportunity to castrate him for daring to breathe in Jongin’s direction, Kyungsoo tried not to mind. Just as he was engaging in an internal debate on whether or not to continue the painful small talk, he was saved from having to make further conversation by Jongdae’s appearance through the classroom doors.

Jongdae made his way over to Kyungsoo, face pulled into his signature perpetual grin. “Hey Kyungsoo, happy birthday!” The younger boy reached out to bop one of his penguin balloons, before reaching into his pocket and dumping a handful of half-melted chocolate truffles onto Kyungsoo’s desk.

“Thanks Jongdae!” Kyungsoo unwrapped one of the chocolates and offered it to the other boy, who happily swallowed it dry.

“Ready for the test tomorrow?” Jongdae questioned, but before Kyungsoo could reply, Ms. Park turned on the projector at the front of the room, and he focused his attention back towards his notebook.

As expected, as Ms. Park’s gaze swept over the class, her eyes lingered for a brief second on Jongin, before moving on as if she hadn’t seen anything at all. Ah, how great it must feel to be a pretty boy. And to be the son of the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, at that. According to Sehun, who somehow knew the dirt on everyone in the entire school, Jongin could just not go to college and not work a day in his entire life and get on more than just fine. 

But one thing that Kim Jongin was not good at, it seemed, was math, if the constant frustrated huffs were any indication, and Kyungsoo quickly forced himself to concentrate on his own work when he caught sight of Jongin’s pout. Kyungsoo had always been soft for cute things: puppies, sweet pastries, and pastel sweaters amongst others, but as soon as his subconscious ventured to add “Kim Jongin” to that list, he frantically tried to shut the thought out of his head.

But maybe Kyungsoo was possessed or something, because he found himself clearing his throat and tentatively asking, “need help?” Jongin looked up from his worksheet, gently nibbling the end of his pencil, and Kyungsoo found himself adding Kim Jongin to his list of adorable things after all.

“Sure, thanks. I’m sorry, I just can’t seem to remember how to integrate variables to the power of one,” he sheepishly replied.

“You don’t need to apologize. Here, this page of formulas should help,” Kyungsoo said, flipping through his notebook to a bookmarked section and handing it to Jongin. “It should be the natural log of x, but don’t quote me on that.”

“Thanks,” Jongin smiled, and then, “your handwriting is amazing, by the way. Are you a Chen fan, too?”

Oh. Kyungsoo had gone through a bullet journaling phase back in the fall as a way to manage the stress of his college applications, and the particular spread that Kyungsoo had accidentally flipped to happened to be dedicated to Chen, a popular ballad singer whom he had developed a fixation on back in middle school and whose discography still took up a majority of the space in his music library.

“Uh, yeah, Jongdae’s a huge fan, so,” Kyungsoo deflected. “He basically ran our middle school choir and forced everyone to memorize all of his songs.”

“That’s a shame,” Jongin murmured, a smirk dancing on the edges of his lips. “Chen’s a great singer, and he’s pretty handsome, too.” 

“His voice _is_ amazing,” Kyungsoo acquiesced, busy running Jongin’s last words through his mind. While Sehun had always been adamant about insisting that Jongin most definitely swung his way, Kyungsoo had never been the type of person to believe in rumors. But this was as clear of a sign as ever, especially when Jongin tacked on a saucy wink, causing Kyungsoo to quickly look away in embarrassment.

“But still not as good looking as me, right?”

Really, what was Kyungsoo meant to say in response? His only experiences with flirting regarded pretending not to hear Chanyeol’s creepily deep voice, which required little more than acting as if the other boy didn’t exist. Clearly, this approach wouldn’t work with Jongin— and was it bad if Kyungsoo wanted to talk to him?

In the end, his natural aversion towards attention won out, because attempting to flirt (back?), albeit awkwardly, would surely cause him to either become the object of jealousy or humiliation of the members of Jongin’s fanclub. And it wasn’t as if Jongin’s ego needed any more stroking.

But despite it all, “yes,” Kyungsoo replied flatly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He turned his attention back to his desk, the numbers on his paper seeming to blur together as he saw a smile blossom on Jongin’s face from the corner of his vision.

Best calculus class ever.

❅❆❅

Calculus class the following day featured a bloated and sleep-deprived Kyungsoo, who had spent the previous night out at the local karaoke place belting out girl group songs with Baekhyun and Sehun whilst simultaneously consuming an inhuman amount of fried chicken and spicy rice cakes. The night of fun led him to slipping into a food coma, and in the present, caused him to collapse into his seat with the hopes of sneaking in a short nap before class started. A few seats to his right, he heard Jongdae squabbling with Minseok about how the former had been copying his English assignment off of a bootleg Sparknotes article, but he tuned it all out in favor of slipping into his personal dreamland, made up of fluffy sheep and bunnies and... Jongin?

The taller boy casually slipped into the seat next to him, his hair gently tousled and looking so soft to the touch, immersed in flipping through the pages of his notebook decorated with haphazardly scribbled formulas. In all honesty, Kyungsoo had thought that yesterday was something of a wistful fever dream, and had tried to convince himself that Kim Jongin would probably never speak to him again, which he would be 100% fine with. (Sure, he was cute, but how could you miss someone that you barely had one (1) conversation with?) With the end of the day, the spell was meant to have broken, today being just another day in his monotonous life. Yet as he glanced over at Jongin, who was worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, Kyungsoo thought that his life just might be becoming more interesting.

Kyungsoo found himself barely flinching when Chanyeol’s loud greeting interrupted his train of thought, only to recoil when “Hey Soobabe” was followed with a bout of coughing. Kyungsoo, as well as the health of the general public, would have been largely benefitted if Chanyeol had just _stayed at home_. But alas, there he was, in all his sleazy and snotty glory. Beside Kyungsoo, Jongin also looked up from his papers, his gaze lingering on the older boy’s wrinkled, affronted face for a brief moment before landing on the tall elf boy.

“Please stop calling me Soobabe,” Kyungsoo gritted out, tired of repeating the same sentence like a broken record every morning (to no avail).

Chanyeol whimpered. “But Soobabe—”

Jongin suddenly turned in his seat to face Kyungsoo. “Do you mind?” He asked. Mind _what_ , Kyungsoo didn’t know, but he found himself nodding anyway.

Jongin leaned over Kyungsoo’s desk, one eyebrow arched. “Hi, Chanyeol, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Kyungsoo doesn’t seem to be very comfortable with you calling him that. As far I know, you two aren’t in any type of special relationship, so I think that he would appreciate it if you would give him his space.”

Chanyeol looked startled at the unexpected interruption, and tripped over his stuttered response. “Well, uh, how do you know what Kyungsoo thinks anyways? How do you know—”

Kyungsoo cleared his throat. “Uh, I’m right here, and as I’ve been trying to tell you for a while now, I’m not interested.”

“Well,” Chanyeol said, puffing his chest out, “I will have you know that I’m not the sort of guy to give up easily. Back in elementary school, when I tried to join the track team, it took me so many tries to make the team that I cursed my abnormally _amazing_ height for the first time for knocking over those hurdles—”

Jongin suddenly stood up in his seat. “Kyungsoo is _not_ a position on the track team—”

“Boys!”

At Ms. Park’s voice, Jongin sent Chanyeol one last hard look before folding himself back into his chair. And much later, when Kyungsoo had finished checking over his responses on his answer sheet for the third time, he caught Jongdae’s eye, who winked and mouthed something along the lines of “ _who’s your boyfriend now_?”

Beside Jongdae, Kim Minseok’s hand immediately shot into the air. “Ms. Park!” He said. “Kim Jongdae is talking during the test!”

“ _Fuck you, Minseok_ ,” Jongdae mouthed.

“Ms. Park! Kim Jongdae is making unsolicited sexual advances!”

Kyungsoo smothered his laugh in the back of his hand.

  
  


❅❆❅

The final school bell usually meant meeting Sehun by the school gates, then listening to the other boy whinge about school assignments or his perpetual “#singlelyfe” for the entire walk home (though Kyungsoo and Baekhyun shared a conspiracy theory that his obsessive love for his Bichon Frise, Vivi, would always mean that his love for another human being would sadly pale in comparison). Sometimes, they would stop for some street food along the way, usually crunchy _bbopki_ or a roll of _kimbap_. The trek wasn’t far, a fifteen minute walk through downtown, and the convenience was a large reason that Kyungsoo was still procrastinating getting his driver’s license. (That, and the fact that there was a reason that he always came in last place when playing Mario Kart— he wasn’t too keen on spiralling downwards into an endless abyss after falling off of Rainbow Road in real life.)

That particular afternoon, Sehun was staying after school to “study” (probably to stalk the new Chinese exchange student who he vehemently denied having a crush on, but Kyungsoo had seen him drooling over the boy during the last winter assembly). Baekhyun lived a few minute’s bike ride in the other direction, so after waving goodbye to his friend, Kyungsoo began to retrace his steps towards his house. He popped one earbud in and was deciding which playlist to listen to, when—

“Hey, Kyungsoo?”

Said boy startled, quickly righting himself and tightening his grip on his phone before looking up and seeing Jongin sitting in a sleek, midnight-blue sports car. (A Tesla? A Maserati? A Honda? Kyungsoo didn’t know much about cars.) The younger boy was leaning out of the rolled down window of the driver’s seat, his tie loosened around his neck.

Kyungsoo simply smiled and waved in return, fully expecting Jongin to drive off, and growing confused when the other boy stepped out of his car and walked up to stand in front of him.

For all of his bravado, Jongin suddenly turned shy, averting his eyes from Kyungsoo’s and choosing to fidget with the sleeves of his school-issued blazer. “I just wanted to apologize,” he started. “I know that you didn’t need me to jump in between you and Chanyeol, and I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t stand up for yourself, because I know that you can, and you did! I just… didn’t think before I acted, and I’m sorry.”

Kyungsoo blinked. “You don’t have to apologize, if Chanyeol listens this time and quits sticking to me like a barnacle, I’ll have you to thank.”

Jongin looked at him, pouting. “Still, I feel bad. Will you let me make it up to you?”

“You don’t have to… but what do you have in mind?”

“Please tell me that you like chicken.”

Kyungsoo blamed Jongin’s expert puppy dog eyes for the reason that ten minutes later, he was strapped into the passenger seat of Jongin’s undoubtedly expensive luxury vehicle on the way to the younger boy’s favorite chicken restaurant. When Jongin parked and hurried to open Kyungsoo’s door for him, he wondered what he was doing, eating dinner with the schools’ resident destined multimillionaire when he could be at home getting a head start on his biology research project. But then Jongin smiled and extended his hand, and Kyungsoo found himself taking it as the pair headed into the restaurant.

The fried chicken restaurant, “my favorite,” as the younger boy had vehemently emphasized, was tucked in the heart of downtown, coincidentally not far from where Kyungsoo’s mother’s café was located a few blocks away. The restaurant featured a very homey interior, bursting with soft yellow lights and the warm hubbub of conversation that warmed the chilly January air. As Kyungsoo’s focus drifted to the posters of food and idols that Jongdae and Baekhyun liked so much decorating the walls, he couldn’t help but be mildly surprised, and thankful, that Jongin hadn’t decided to bring them to a ritzy 5 star restaurant— he wasn’t about to drop a month’s worth of college tuition on a “fancily cooked” sprig of asparagus, thank you very much.

Of course Jongin could tell that Kyungsoo didn’t belong in that world, of CEOs and socialites who visited a new city every night. And it seemed that the other boy, too, was perfectly happy to be tucked into a corner in the back of the restaurant, seemingly already knowing his order and not bothering to peruse the slightly sticky laminated menu in front of him.

But wouldn’t it be okay to pretend for just one evening that he and Jongin were friends, that laughing and bantering with him was as natural to Kyungsoo as inhaling bubble tea was to Sehun or crying over Korean dramas was to Baekhyun? (“But Kyungsoo! You don’t underSTAND! They were meant to be—” “Good night, Baekhyun, call me later when you’ve regained your sanity and aren’t sobbing to me about your newest ship. It’s 4am, I can’t deal with this shit right now, preferably never.” Baekhyun scoffed. “And precisely this, my dearest friend, is why you will never find love.”)

“I recommend the marinated chicken,” Jongin suddenly said, snapping Kyungsoo out of his reverie. “It goes really well with the house fried rice, so we can share that, if that’s okay with you?”

“Sounds great,” Kyungsoo replied. “Do you come here often?”

Jongin grinned sheepishly, admitting, “a little too much. Neither of my two best friends happen to like fried chicken and my parents are abroad a lot, so I come here alone on most Friday nights.”

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Alone? I’m pretty sure that almost anyone at school would be tripping over themselves to spend time with you.”

All of the mirth suddenly faded from Jongin’s warm eyes, and he leaned down to take a sip of water. "They probably just want to get a free meal at an expensive restaurant,” he mumbled around his straw. “And I’d rather eat alone then be with people who see me as some sort of status symbol.”

“Hey,” Kyungsoo said, hesitantly placing a hand on Jongin’s shoulder from across the table. He wasn’t sure if he was crossing some sort of invisible line and moved to draw his arm back, before the other boy whimpered slightly and leaned in to his touch like a puppy left out in the cold. Curse his weakness to adorable things. “It’s okay, I’m always happy to keep you company— if you want, that is.”

It seemed that Kyungsoo’s lame attempt to cheer the other up had worked when Jongin looked up with a tiny smile on his face. “I’d really like that,” he said, before teasing, “You’re not like the other boys.”

“But I’m like all of the other girls?” Kyungsoo queried, quirking an eyebrow. 

”Girls were never in the equation to begin with.”

Kyungsoo tried to stop the fluttering of his heart by reminding himself that with Jongin’s admission that he did swing his way, he owed Sehun free lunches for an entire week. But as he looked at Jongin sitting across the table, the angles of his face illuminated by the restaurant’s poor lighting, he would have given anything to immortalize that moment.

When the two boys devoured the last of their meal, Jongin immediately flagged a waiter over and handed him a black card procured from his Louis Vuitton wallet. “I’m the one who asked you out,” Jongin said before Kyungsoo could formulate his protest, tucking his wallet back into the pocket of his coat slung over the back of his chair. The waiter bowed, accepting the credit card from Jongin before hurriedly turning away with a slight smirk on his face.

Oh, so was this a date now? Not that Kyungsoo was complaining, but color him _confused_.

He looked up, meeting Jongin’s challenging eyes with a resolve of his own. “Thank you, Jongin, but I can’t let you pay for everything. How do you feel about getting dessert?”

Kyungsoo helped Jongin put on his thick down jacket, laughing when the younger boy struggled with turning his sleeve inside out. The outside air was chilly, and Kyungsoo found Jongin huddling into his side as the two made their way to Kyungsoo’s family’s café a few blocks away. A bell jingled overhead when he pushed the heavy door open, pausing in the doorway to brush snowflakes off of Jongin’s head, which earned him a warm smile in return.

“Hi Seulgi,” he greeted the barista behind the counter, who waved in welcome. Kyungsoo guided Jongin to the pastry cabinet, which displayed a delectable array of cakes and cookies. “Do you see anything that you like?”

Jongin leaned in to analyze his options, and Kyungsoo stopped himself from staring at him like a creep. Instead, he turned to face Seulgi. “Do you know if my mom’s still here?”

“Yeah, she’s in the back,” the girl replied, cheerful as always. “I’ll go get her. Happy belated birthday, by the way!”

“Thanks, and that would be great,” Kyungsoo replied, returning her smile. 

He felt a tug on the sleeve of his jacket, and Jongin asked, “what do you mean, your mom’s in the back?”

“Hi Kyungsoo, and oh— who’s this?”

Perfect timing, mom.

“Mom, this is Jongin, one of my— friends from school.” Jongin straightened up next to him, falling into a deep bow.

“Nice to meet you, Jongin. It’s great to see that you have such a polite and handsome friend, a much better first impression than Baekhyun and Sehun, at least,” she smiled. “Did you two want to get something to eat?”

Kyungsoo looked towards Jongin inquiringly, and the younger boy pointed towards the matcha crêpe cake. “If that’s okay with you, Kyungsoo,” he added, and Kyungsoo nodded, also suggesting the addition of two hot chocolates.

The pair settled into a seat by the window, Jongin immediately beginning to whine that Kyungsoo hadn’t warned him about meeting his parents so soon. “You should have told me,” Jongin pouted. “I could have tried to prepare myself better.”

Kyungsoo laughed. “You didn’t need to be nervous, what’s the worst that could have happened? And she liked you, anyways.”

“I wanted to make a good impression,” Jongin insisted, squirming in his seat. 

“You did,” Kyungsoo’s mother reassured, walking up to their table, drinks and cake in hand, causing Jongin to bolt upright. “Though I suppose nothing could have been worse than meeting Baekhyun and Sehun when they were burning my entire kitchen down.”

“It was an impromptu Masterchef competition,” Kyungsoo supplied. “But Baekhyun burned water and Sehun flipped pancakes all over the ceiling.”

“Not the best idea when my kitchen is my pride and joy,” Kyungsoo’s mother added, “and the two did a terrible job cleaning up afterwards. Pancake batter everywhere. Don’t get me _started_ on the state of the poor pots, burned even darker than that time Kyungsoo was reenacting some scene from Hell’s Kitchen—”

“I’ll see you at home?” Kyungsoo interjected.

“Okay, okay, I’ll leave you two alone now. Let me know if you want a ride home,” she winked, disappearing behind the counter.

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo said, turning his focus back towards Jongin, who was looking more than a little overwhelmed. “You were right, I should have warned you about that.”

“She’s nice, I just… didn’t think we’d be meeting the parents so soon.”

Kyungsoo choked on his hot chocolate, and Jongin rushed to worriedly pat his back. At Kyungsoo’s insistence, the younger boy settled back into his seat, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.

“Kyungsoo, can I ask you something?”

Kyungsoo hummed around a forkful of crêpe cake.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I know that this might seem selfish, but I wanted to know if I could ask you for a present.”

“What kind of present?” There was most definitely nothing that Kyungsoo could buy that Jongin didn’t already own or couldn’t acquire with a snap of his fingers, or anything he could put together that could top what Jongin’s fanclub was undoubtedly planning. A twenty tier birthday cake? A choir that followed Jongin around all day singing nothing but Chen’s latest hits?

Jongin’s hand crept across the table, tentatively settling on top of Kyungsoo’s. “Can we… do this again? Another date, I mean, if you want that.”

Kyungsoo carefully turned his hand beneath Jongin’s until their palms met, clasping Jongin’s hand firmly in his. “I’d like that, too,” he said quietly, looking up to see Jongin’s lips parted in the beginnings of a smile.

That night, Jongin dropped Kyungsoo off at his house with a new phone contact and a promise.

❅❆❅

“So let me get this straight… you went on a dinner and dessert date with _Kim Jongin_?” Baekhyun gaped, popping his strawberry lollipop back into his mouth.

“I know,” Kyungsoo sighed, unlocking his locker and swinging its door open. “I spent the whole weekend trying to understand what happened, and I still can’t believe it either.”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way, you’re hot _and_ smart, and don’t get me started on your perky butt—” Kyungsoo scowled, dodging Baekhyun’s playful slap— “but Kim Jongin, future CEO, Playboy model extraordinaire, is pretty much known for not going out with anyone. I’ve never seen you two talk before, so it’s kinda weird that he suddenly thinks that you’re special or some shit. _You’re not like all of the other boys_ ,” Baekhyun mocked, and Kyungsoo’s eyes widened slightly. “Please don’t tell me he said that to you. Oh my god, he totally did.”

“I wouldn’t believe it either, but Jongin’s fan accounts have been going crazy since last night,” Sehun supplied, brandishing his phone. “It seemed like you two had a bit of a stalker following? I thought you had a better eye for that, Kyungsoo,” he pouted, disappointed.

“He was too busy losing himself in Jongin’s eyes,” Baekhyun laughed, high-fiving Sehun as Kyungsoo rolled his eyes.

“But really, Kyungsoo,” Sehun said, uncharacteristically serious. “Just don’t check out Jongin’s fanpage, okay? They’ve been saying some… not so nice things about you, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“It’s a good thing that Kyungsoo doesn’t have any social media accounts, then,” Baekhyun offered, slinging an arm over Kyungsoo’s shoulders as the three headed to their first period class. “I heard from Jongdae that Jongin sat next to you in calculus, and honestly, I’m surprised that his fans haven’t tried to hunt you down by now.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll protect you,” Sehun said with bravado, flexing his noodly arms. “I haven’t been building my arm muscles for nothing.”

“Come off of it, we all know that your idea of exercise is playing Wii Sports,” Baekhyun laughed, Kyungsoo joining along.

“Thanks, guys, but you don’t have to worry. I doubt that he’ll sit with me again anyways.”

Baekhyun cocked his head, sharing a mischievous smile with Sehun. “Are you willing to bet a free meal on that?”

Kyungsoo nodded, wondering what it was with his friends and betting on food as his two friends snickered while they waved goodbye, the three heading their separate ways to class. 

Jongin doesn’t actually care about you, Kyungsoo said to himself. Out of the hundreds of people throwing themselves at him, there’s no reason for him to have suddenly chosen you _._ Maybe he had read too much into the situation and Jongin just wanted to be friends, which was almost just as inconceivable, and wasn’t Jongin the one that had asked Kyungsoo out for _another_ date? (Not to brag, but Kyungsoo _had_ earned a perfect score in the reading comprehension section of the SAT— and his deduction skills had led him to believe that Jongin had been implying that he was interested. Still, it wasn’t like Kyungsoo had ever been on a sort-of-maybe-date before, so he probably lacked the context to come to an accurate conclusion.)

No matter, Kyungsoo thought, smoothing down his blazer. When he entered the calculus classroom, Jongin would be sitting in the back of the classroom where he had always been, and Kyungsoo would return to being the filling of the idiot sandwich between Chanyeol and the vacant seat to his left. 

He stepped into the classroom, waving hello to Jongdae who was currently engaged in yet another heated argument with Minseok— no surprise there— before allowing his focus to drift over towards his desk, and—

Oh. Much surprise there.

“Hey Kyungsoo!” Jongin called, waving enthusiastically from the seat next to Kyungsoo’s, striking the perfect balance between looking oh so cute and _hot_ in his school uniform despite wearing the same uniform as everyone else. (Maybe Kyungsoo was a touch biased.) He blinked hard, once, and then again, and nope, Jongin was still there, waving him over. Kyungsoo tried to ignore the searing glares practically burning holes into his head, and the barely-concealed hisses of “Jongin is MINE, bitch.”

He returned Jongin’s bright smile, albeit a little more muted, and settled down into the chair next to him. Surprisingly, he noted that Chanyeol hadn’t made a move to speak to him, the gangly boy completely absorbed in the bright screen of his smartphone— and Kyungsoo had no complaints whatsoever. Had he entered some sort of alternate reality? He couldn’t be certain.

“Are you free after school tomorrow? I have dance practice after school today, and I don’t want to make you wait,” Jongin said.

Kyungsoo cocked his head. “What for?”

Jongin let out a long-suffering sigh, his breath ruffling his fluffy bangs. “For our date, remember? I thought we agreed on this,” Jongin pouted. “Do you not want to go out with me anymore?”

“No, no, I do,” Kyungsoo rushed out, instinctively leaning over to clasp Jongin’s hands with his, before remembering his audience and flinching away. Jongin quickly linked their fingers together before he could do so, and Kyungsoo desperately tried to fight back his blush. “I thought that you might have changed your mind.” He wiggled his fingers in Jongin’s grasp, adding, “and I don’t think that the classroom is the best place for this.”

Jongin leaned closer, whispering, “is this because of my stalkers? I’m sorry… I heard that they wrote some pretty mean things about you.”

“I think that the more immediate issue is that literally half of the entire class is currently wishing that I would just drop dead right now. Including Ms. Park,” Kyungsoo deadpanned, and Jongin’s face wrinkled in disgust.

“We should probably find a better place to meet in the future,” Jongin begrudgingly agreed. “I don’t know how they found my favorite chicken restaurant...” Kyungsoo made a mental note to cook a chicken dish for Jongin sometime soon— before immediately dismissing that thought because there was simply _no way_ that he would be able to live up to the gourmet dishes that Jongin had been raised on. But the other boy had proven that he wasn’t all just ridiculously expensive restaurants and imported caviar, if his love for (relatively) cheap fried chicken and his worn out backpack was any indication.

Throughout the class period, for once, Kyungsoo’s focus wasn’t _completely_ on his classwork, and he was instead completely immersed in the easy conversation between himself and Jongin. It turned out that the two shared a distaste for coffee (or The Devil’s Juice, as Jongin claimed), a love for puppies (apparently Jongin owned three— his adoration for them was made clear by their photo on his lockscreen), and, surprisingly, a distaste for school dances. 

“But Baekhyun and Sehun are already trying to convince me to go,” Kyungsoo sighed, lowering his head to furiously fill in his worksheet before the lunch bell rang. Maybe Jongin could get away with slacking off, but he most definitely was not going to test his luck. “I would have thought that you liked school dances, though. Aren’t you on the dance team?”

Jongin looked up from his desk, propping his chin in his hands as he smirked. “How do you know that? Are you one of my stalkers too? Ow,” he whined when Kyungsoo’s penguin-shaped eraser hit the side of his head.

“My friend Yixing is the dance team co-captain, so I’ve been to your performances before,” Kyungsoo explained. “You clearly like dancing, so is it the headache-inducing terrible excuse for music that puts you off?”

“Oh, so you _were_ watching me?” Okay, so maybe Kyungsoo had _observed_ him, but it wasn’t like Jongin had to know that. “And… I’ve always felt like there was some insane kind of pressure to go with someone, and I’ve never really wanted to do that before. What am I supposed to do when a slow song comes on? Go drown myself in the bowl of fruit punch?”

“If you do that, you’d probably pass out from the alcohol concentration,” Kyungsoo offered. “Honestly, I was planning on dancing with my friends, but knowing them, they’ll have their own dates.”

Jongin’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “So you’re going, then?”

“Yeah, probably,” Kyungsoo murmured, scanning over his worksheet in hopes of catching any careless errors. “I have a ticket and an offer for a free makeover, and I don’t want to regret not going.”

“Trying to live the magical prom night experience that they write about in those cheesy romance novels?”

Kyungsoo chuckled. “I guess so.”

Jongin was silent for a brief moment before replying, “maybe I am, too.”

When the school bell rang, Kyungsoo immediately stood up to turn his worksheet in at the teacher’s desk, and he was definitely not imagining the pointed looks that seemed to pierce his soul at every turn. Quickly collecting the items on his desk, he turned to say goodbye to Jongin, only to see that the other boy had already put his backpack on and was lingering beside him… waiting for him?

“Come on, Kyungsoo, I can’t stand here forever,” Jongin teased, reaching out to help him put his pencil case into his backpack.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Kyungsoo said, zipping his backpack up and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’m sure that your friends are waiting for you.”

Jongin opted to ignore him completely, instead grasping Kyungsoo’s arm and guiding him outside of the classroom and down the hallway. “Jongin,” Kyungsoo gritted out, trying (in vain) to loosen the other’s boy grip, “do you _want_ to keep fueling our relationship rumors?”

“If things go as I hope,” Jongin replied, “then the rumors will be true, anyways.” 

He gave Kyungsoo’s arm a tug as the two turned the corner into the cafeteria. Amongst the cacophony of noise, Kyungsoo spotted Sehun sitting at their usual lunch table, along with Baekhyun, and… two of Jongin’s friends, a Chinese transfer student known for his flower boy looks whose name Kyungsoo couldn’t quite remember, and Kim Junmyeon, the student council c0-president. (He shared the title with a Chinese-Canadian boy who was voted in solely for his height and good looks— Junmyeon was awarded the privilege of doing all of the work in his stead. Poor Junmyeon, indeed.)

Jongin began making his way over towards the strange collection of people, and Kyungsoo met Sehun’s gaze, the younger boy silently communicating “What the fuck is going on, who are these people, I just want to eat my soggy microwaved lunch in peace.” Kyungsoo tried his best to send back a “I have no fucking clue,” likely ending up looking freaked out and mildly distressed, in which case, mission: success.

Of course Kyungsoo’s captor(?) was unperturbed, pulling Kyungsoo to sit down next to him and greeting everyone at the table as if nothing was out of the norm. Other than Sehun, who was steadily fighting off the transfer student’s persistent questioning, his face suspiciously red, everyone seemed to be perfectly fine with the new arrangement, and Kyungsoo never was one to be exclusionary and pull the “you can’t sit with us” card.

“Are you at the wrong table?” Kyungsoo couldn’t help but question Jongin as he carefully unwrapped his bento box.

“Do you want us to move?” Jongin asked, looking all sorts of sad and pitiful. “I just thought that it would be fun to sit together during lunch. My friends kinda wanted to meet you.”

Suddenly, Junmyeon turned his attention towards the pair from where he was sitting across the table. “Hi Kyungsoo! I’m Junmyeon,” the boy introduced himself, extending his hand which Kyungsoo hesitantly shook. The Chinese transfer paused amidst his pestering-Sehun session to laugh, pointedly reminding Junmyeon that “you’re not at a business meeting, so no need for such a formal handshake.”

“I’m idiot Jongin’s friend, Luhan,” he said, his accent barely coloring the lilts of his voice, and just like Sehun, he looked as if he had just lept off of the pages of some Japanese high school manga.

“I think you mean Jongin’s idiot friend, Luhan,” Jongin “corrected” him, earning himself a glower.

“Keep that up,” Luhan threatened, his saccharine smile quickly turning devilish, “and I’ll tell Kyungsoo about _allll_ of your deepest, darkest, secrets. Like the time that you saw that SHINee member and waved your flat ass— ouch!” He yelped, smarting from Junmyeon’s pinch to his side.

“Don’t go scaring Kyungsoo off already,” Junmyeon reprimanded. “I’m sorry that we more or less intruded on your lunch table, but Jongin was very insistent.”

“Don’t worry,” Baekhyun interjected, leaning his head on a very disgruntled Sehun’s shoulder, sporting a familiar obnoxious grin. “We don’t mind, right guys? Right,” he answered himself, much to his two friends’ annoyance. Baekhyun reached over to dig into Kyungsoo’s lunch box, who reflexively slapped at his hand in retaliation. Kyungsoo was known for having the most delicious lunches— today’s was kimchi spaghetti— and Baekhyun and Sehun had developed a habit of mooching off of him whenever and however they could. He had taken to bringing larger portions of food to account for the loss, because when Baekhyun wanted something, he got it, through whatever means necessary.

Sehun suddenly sat up from where he had been hunching over the lunch table, drawing himself to his full height with enviably perfect posture. “Even if I’m fine with it, you’re just putting an even larger target on Kyungsoo’s back, Kim Jongin,” he accused, facial features schooling themselves into his trademark Bitch Face. “If you’ve read the comments on last week’s stalker posts on your fan accounts then you know exactly what I’m talking about.” 

“Go report those kids to the school administration, teacher’s pet,” Luhan drawled at Junmyeon. Then, facing Kyungsoo, he smirked. “Popularity comes with a price, as does being Kim Jongin’s one and only love interest.”

Kyungsoo flustered while Jongin let out a pained groan, burying his face in his hands. “What,” the transfer student feigned innocence, batting his eyelashes, “did I say too much? All I did was state the obvious.”

Baekhyun cackled. “You know what? I think that we’ll all get along just fine.”

“As long as I get the first bite of kimchi spaghetti,” Sehun acquiesced, grumbling. “And Kim Jongin, I have my eyes on you.”

“Can’t you keep your eyes on me instead?” Luhan teased, winking greasily.

Sehun flushed, and _oh,_ was this Luhan the same Chinese transfer student that he had been ogling for the past month? Kyungsoo watched Jongin half-laugh and half-choke on a bite of his egg salad sandwich, and without a second thought, he smacked the other boy’s back, inadvertently feeling the rippling of the muscles beneath his skin. Jongin inhaled a huge gulp of water before turning to Kyungsoo with an adorable smile on his face, and Kyungsoo thought that he didn’t mind this new lunch arrangement so much after all.

❅❆❅

From: Jongin

kyungsooooo I failed the calculus test

:’(

Why are you texting like that

like wat

Like that

idk kyungsoooo halp

i bet you got a good score but not all of us have good math brains like u…

:’(

:’(

:’(

i dont want my mom to find out

i should have studied instead of playing slither.io for five hours straight

I’m sorry Jongin I hope your mom’s not too mad...

Are you pouting?

Attached: IMG_012.png

yes :’(

this is all your fault u no

?

you distracted me on our last in class review day >:(

Well who was the one who sat next to me that day?

it was because of my traitorous contact lenses oKAY

but i’m glad that i got to sit next to you

on second thought that was totally worth failing the calculus exam

you’re forgiven soo

<3

Study date tomorrow? :)

Can’t have you failing calculus

What would my parents think?

yes!! after school?

i’ll wait for you outside your classroom

tell ur mom that her future son in law says hi

Okay what did you actually get on the calculus test

…

86

… you “failed” the test?

Tell your mom that her future son in law says that her son is a liar

meanie :’(

I’ll bring food, how’s kimchi fried rice

YES

with cheese!

you’re the best :D

\- sent wednesday, 6:49PM-

  
  
  
  
  


Chat Room “bad bois 😤”: HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇, 💕vivi’s dad💕, Kyungsoo

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

guYS THE NEW EPISODE OF MY NEW FAVORITE KOREAN DRAMA CAME OUT

**Kyungsoo**

Please just don’t call me at four am to rant about it tonight

Sleep > Korean dramas

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

Shut it kyungie you’re the one who cried over that tennis anime

And I’m already too invested there’s no backing out now

**💕vivi’s dad💕**

What drama?

Anything’s better than doing homework so I’m up for a cheesy rom com

**Kyungsoo**

We have the 3 mile run in PE tomorrow so I wouldn’t recommend binging too hard

I don’t want you guys to pass out or something

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

hehe maybe a cute boy will bring me to the nurse and we’ll be together forever~

And @sehun I stream it on some pretty sketchy websites

Like I’m pretty sure that I have 10000000000 porn viruses on my laptop by now

**💕vivi’s dad💕**

lol if life actually was like a drama that would happen

I’m not willing to sacrifice my laptop to the gods o_o

gtg gonna go walk vivi

**Kyungsoo**

Vivi needs all of the walks that he can get

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

^^^

**💕vivi’s dad💕**

HEY HES NOT FAT HES JUST FLUFFY

APOLOGIZE RN KSOO

**Kyungsoo**

Let me think about it

Nah

-sent 9:03PM-

  
  
  
  
  


From: Jongin

completely hypothetically, if someone were to ask you to formal… what would you say?

Depends on who it is

And if it’s through text… probably no

oh

so kyungsoo do you wanna drive to school with me tomorrow?

Sehun’s out sick cause he and Baekhyun had a eating competition and I think that the 12th cup of bubble tea was too much

Taro milk tea and tapioca pearls are everywhere in my living room

I didn’t think it was possible but my mom hates him more now

But yeah I’m free to go with you tomorrow

I see how it is i’m just your second choice >:(

Okay I’d _love_ to go with you tomorrow

Just don’t go slamming on the brakes again and maybe we’ll make it in one piece

much better :D

and that was oNE tiME okay

i thought that i saw chicken on the road and I couldn’t hit him

his life > ours sorry

Whatever you say…

See you at 7:30

Good night, Jongin

\- sent 10:02PM-


	2. Decisions and Destroyed Kitchens

7:28 AM the next morning found Kyungsoo standing on the street outside of his apartment complex, ducking into a penguin-patterned scarf that Baekhyun had gifted him and shuffling in place in a poor attempt at generating body heat. Do Kyungsoo was many things— nerdy, quiet, and when the situation called for it, intimidating— but he made a conscious effort to never be tardy. That was why he decided to brave the cold in waiting for Jongin to pick him up on his way to school, not wanting to inconvenience the other boy by forcing him to double-park on the curb while waiting for Kyungsoo’s arrival, though it had been tempting to remain basking in the warmth of his apartment building’s lobby. When a familiar dark blue vehicle appeared in the distance, he wasn’t sure if the sudden blossoming of heat in his stomach was from a gulp of the green tea in his Thermos or his excitement towards seeing Jongin again.

The Tesla Roadster (as Baekhyun had kindly educated him on with an endlessly long rant involving numerous Youtube videos and Wikipedia articles, his tirade only ending when Kyungsoo threatened to run him over with a  _ 2020 Midnight-Blue Triple Electric Motor Death Machine _ ) slowed to a halt, and Kyungsoo waved at its driver through the window.

“Hey,” he breathed, practically melting into the heated passenger seat. He clutched his backpack to his stomach, procuring a Thermos that matched his own and offering it to Jongin. “I brought you something.”

Jongin accepted the Thermos, lifting the cover curiously before breaking out into a grin. “Hot chocolate! Thanks, Soo… but,” he said sheepishly, “this car doesn’t really have a cup holder.”

Kyungsoo placed the container of hot chocolate back into his backpack, rolling his eyes as Jongin shifted into drive. “For such an expensive car, you would think that it would have  _ ten _ cup holders at least.”

“It was my mom’s car! I didn’t choose it, okay?”

“Don’t pretend that you don’t like all of the attention you get when you drive around in it.”

Jongin paused at that. “Are you okay with showing up at school with me like this?” He asked, and even with his eyes focused on the road, his sudden nervousness was palpable, filling the small space of the car just as the smoke from Baekhyun’s burned pot of water had seemingly permeated every air molecule in his living room during The Cooking Incident.

Sitting with Jongin during lunch times, during calculus classes, and somehow sharing jokes and micro-conversations with him during passing periods had meant that the entire school knew of their relationship by now. What was the nature of this relationship, exactly? Kyungsoo didn’t quite know himself, but there were numerous, _very_ _creative_ theories floating about. He had been privy to one insinuating that he was a gold digger after Jongin’s inheritance, and another that he was affiliated with a group of notorious gangsters and had been threatening Jongin to spend time with him. Personally, Kyungsoo thought that they had probably been reading too much fanfiction. 

In the past, such attention would have bothered him. But now—

“I’m fine with it,” Kyungsoo replied, resting his hand on top of Jongin’s, which was clutching the gear shifter. “I like spending time with you. I’m used to all of the looks I get, and everyone knows that we hang out together, anyways.”

At a stop light, Kyungsoo felt Jongin’s hand tense beneath his before the other boy turned to look at him. “I’m glad that my friends and I sat at your table that day, even though I know that lunches have been a  _ lot _ less peaceful for you since.”

“Your fanclub is overbearing, but I like Junmyeon and Luhan. Which reminds me… I wonder what happened to Chanyeol?”

“What,” Jongin pouted, “do you miss his attention or something?” Kyungsoo scowled at that, playfully swatting at the taller boy’s shoulder.

“Definitely not,” he said flatly. “Calculus class has gotten infinitely better now that that elf boy’s become a smartphone addict.”

“I’m glad, because… I may have had something to do with that.” Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows, imploring Jongin to elaborate, but the other boy only responded with a smile. “Try not to think about it too hard, you overachiever. You’ll find out eventually. Probably.”

“You’re the one who called an 86 a  _ failing  _ grade, so I think you’re quite the overachiever yourself,” Kyungsoo retorted. “And I guess if I really wanted to know what’s going on with Chanyeol, I could just ask Sehun.”

“That boy knows everything, and I’m honestly kind of scared that he’s out to kill me,” Jongin said as he pulled into the school’s parking lot, resting his hand on the back of Kyungsoo’s seat to reverse into a space. Kyungsoo stepped out of the car, slinging his backpack on his shoulder and smoothing down his uniform dress shirt before making his way around to the driver’s side.

“I think that Sehun might have a future career path with the National Intelligence Service, and Baekhyun could be his field agent.”

Jongin chortled as he climbed out of the car, grabbing his backpack from the back seat before beginning to walk towards the school’s main building. Out of the blue, Kyungsoo noticed a familiar boy sitting in the passenger seat of the car parked next to Jongin’s, and waved his hand in greeting. Junmyeon remained mum, regarding Kyungsoo with an expression that looked even more constipated than normal.

“Isn’t that Yifan’s car?” Jongin murmured. “I wonder what what Junmyeon’s doing in there. Junmyeon?” he called, raising the volume of his voice.

Junmyeon slowly rolled down the window, avoiding eye contact by fiddling with the buttons on his navy blue blazer. 

“You and Yifan, huh?”

“No!” Junmyeon protested, “don’t jump to conclusions, we were just working on uh… something for the student council together, and yeah.” Yifan? Doing work? Unlikely. He exchanged a glance with Jongin, who wasn’t even trying to conceal his amusement.

“And what event are you guys planning together?”

“An easter egg hunt?”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah! He’s going to dress up as the easter bunny and I’m going to—uh—”

“Suck his dick? Junmyeon, it's January. And we all know that you’re not the best liar.”

“Okay,” the student council co-president sighed, deflating like one of Kyungsoo’s penguin-shaped birthday balloons that remained tied to his bedpost in the corner of his bedroom. “Yifan and I hang out, sometimes.”

“It looks like there’s more to it than that, though.”

Junmyeon’s eyes spoke of much internal panic, and he immediately attempted to change the topic. “You and Kyungsoo came to school together in your Roadster? Luhan’s been begging to ride in it for so long now, he won’t be happy when he hears about this.”

Jongin shrugged. “Luhan will understand, Kyungsoo’s not just any friend. And,” he grinned, “he makes an excellent cup holder too. Right, Soo?”

Kyungsoo leaned up on his tip toes, gripping Jongin’s firm forearm for balance. “I think I’d prefer being your boyfriend instead,” he whispered, his voice as smooth as ever.

From inside of Yifan’s car, Junmyeon climbed over the center console and made his escape, his interrogator too stricken by Kyungsoo’s words to notice.

It was Kyungsoo’s turn to deflate, bemoaning the fact that the giddiness that had built up inside of him like a pressure cooker had clearly affected the coherency of his thought process. Jongin’s arm was tensed in his grip, and Kyungsoo carefully separated himself from the other boy, mumbling a quiet apology. So what if Jongin had flirted with him a little? There was never a promise of their relationship being anything more than that between two friends. He was Jongin’s  _ cup holder,  _ not his potential boyfriend.

“Wait, Kyungsoo,” Jongin flustered, hooking his arm around the small of Kyungsoo’s waist and bringing their bodies together. “I don’t want you to think that I’m just messing with you for fun or something, because I’m not. I don’t know if I’ve made it clear, but I want you to know that I like you.”

Kyungsoo wordlessly reached out to link their fingers together, and he peered up at Jongin, mentally communicating the message that  _ I like you, too _ .

If the taller boy’s sweet smile was any indication, the transmission was a success.

❅❆❅

It was a few days later on a Wednesday afternoon when Kyungsoo found himself sitting at his regular lunch table, alone for what felt like the first time in forever. Baekhyun wasn’t bantering with anyone who would grace him with a response, Sehun and Luhan weren’t bickering, Junmyeon wasn’t nagging everyone about completing an assignment that had a due date that wouldn’t arrive for  _ weeks _ , and Jongin wasn’t sitting beside him, their thighs pressed together beneath the table, the younger boy shooting him warm smiles and never ceasing his constant seal-like laughter. Kyungsoo wondered if this was what it’d feel like after he graduated, and a part of him began to dread the graduation ceremony that he had spent the past 14 years of his academic career working towards.

Then there was the matter of not knowing where he would be in a year from now, maybe in university, or working at his family’s restaurant, or halfway across the world. The entirety of the school’s senior class was united by this sentiment, and he was grateful for his friends, both new and old, for sticking through it all with him.

Usually, he and Jongin headed directly from calculus class to the cafeteria together, but the younger boy had been acting a little shifty all period. He mumbled out an indecipherable excuse about dry-cleaning Junmyeon’s locker before dashing off as soon as Ms. Park had dismissed the class, leaving his math notebook behind on his desk in his haste.

Odd, but Kyungsoo had simply placed Jongin’s bright pink notebook into his backpack before walking to the cafeteria on his own.

“Hey Kyungie,” Baekhyun crowed, sliding into a seat across from him and setting a tray of the cafeteria staples— rice, kimchi, bean paste soup, and mackerel— on the table. Sehun sat down on Kyungsoo’s left, immediately pawing at his bento box and popping a piece of chicken karaage into his mouth. “Where’s that boyfriend of yours?”

Kyungsoo let out a snort. “Not my boyfriend, and I don’t know, he’s been acting a little weird today. But,” he said, “It’s nice like this, just the three of us.”

Baekhyun’s face softened, and Sehun leaned his head onto his shoulder affectionately. “I’m going to miss you guys,” Sehun said quietly.

“If none of us end up getting into college then we can all work at my parents’ restaurant together next year,” Kyungsoo offered, trying to dispel the nervousness that had been clinging to him like a sweaty gym shirt all day.

“There’s  _ no way _ that your mom would hire Sehun and I,” Baekhyun laughed. “Even if we worked as busboys I’m pretty sure that she’d be so nervous that she’d keep the fire department on speed dial. And there’s also no way that you’re not getting into  _ a  _ university.”

“You guys are still coming over after school today, right?” Sehun confirmed. “I picked up two tubs of celebration-slash-consolation ice cream yesterday to prepare.”

Along with being a Wednesday, it was university application decision day, aka Judgement Day, the day when a majority of colleges came back with application outcomes. Kyungsoo had been mentally preparing himself for receiving a long string of rejections for months now, and he, Baekhyun, and Sehun had agreed to open their decision letters together with the hope that camaraderie could ease their collective anxiousness and would provide an outlet for disappointment and elation alike. He had applied almost exclusively to American colleges, as his older brother had, and had lovingly dubbed the day Cryvy Day (in reference to the Ivy League and the tears that would inevitably be shed).

Kyungsoo and Baekhyun both nodded, the latter mumbling out a sarcastic “can’t wait.”

Luhan appeared out of the throngs of students, grasping Junmyeon’s wrist and ushering him towards a seat at their table. Junmyeon’s eyebrows were tightly knit together, and he appeared to be muttering something under his breath. 

“He’s nervous,” Luhan stage whispered (read: announced), “because of university decisions. The past five-hundred-and-three generations of his family went to Seoul National University, so he’s really feeling the pressure.”

“Pretty much everyone in our entire grade is nervous,” Sehun pointed out. “Look at Jongin walking over here, he looks like he’s about to combust.”

“Oh, no,” Luhan smirked knowingly. “That’s a different kind of nervousness altogether.”

Kyungsoo looked up and saw Jongin, his entire body tensed and arms behind his back, gazing directly at him. When he reached the table, he stood in front of Kyungsoo, hesitating and nibbling at his lower lip.

Kyungsoo decided to break the silence first. “You left your notebook in calculus class—”

He was quickly interrupted by a glass tupperware container being shoved into his hands, and after giving it a cursory glance, he looked up at Jongin in confusion.

“Open it!” Baekhyun prompted. Kyungsoo peeled the top of the container off to reveal a dozen messily frosted vanilla cupcakes, adorned with bright pink frosting spelling out “F O R M A L ? ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡”.

“Please go to formal with me, Kyungsoo?” Jongin asked. “Uh, I’m sorry that the frosting kinda melted and I’m a terrible baker so I probably should have bought the cupcakes instead, and I think that I might have put too much salt in the batter so maybe don’t eat them—”

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo said, balancing the container on his lap, a smile blossoming on his face as he reached out to envelop the other boy’s larger hands in his. “I’d love to go with you.”

Luhan and Baekhyun whooped from the sidelines, and even Junmyeon momentarily forgot his panic to regard the scene with a fond smile.

“These cupcakes though,” Sehun said, poking one of the “baked goods.” “How long did you bake them for?”

Jongin snapped out of his blissed stupor of  _ Kyungsoo said yes, Kyungsoo said yes, Kyungsoo said yes, _ and mulled over the question for a minute. “45 minutes?”

Sehun quirked an eyebrow, deadpanning, “they’re as hard as rocks.”

“hA, tHaT’s wHAt hE—”

“Shut up, Luhan.”

Jongin took the tupperware from Sehun’s hold, covering the top and pushing it to the edge of the table. “Maybe don’t eat them,” he mumbled. He looked up at Baekhyun, accusing, “I knew I shouldn’t have tried baking on my own.”

Baekhyun raised his arms up in surrender. “It worked, didn’t it?” He supplied, and Jongin’s expression immediately softened as he turned his attention back towards Kyungsoo, seeming relieved and oh so pleased.

“It’s the effort that counts,” Sehun agreed. 

“Still, I didn’t think it was possible, but you might be even worse at cooking than Sehun and I are.”

“Doubtful. Did he burn his kitchen down, too?”

“Last I remembered,  _ you  _ were the one who flipped all of those pancakes onto the ceiling.”

“Maybe I just have superior arm muscles.”

“For fuck’s sake, playing Mario Kart is  _ not  _ the same as working out!”

As Baekhyun and Sehun continued their squabble over who was the best Masterchef, thankfully not by trying to cook this time, Kyungsoo leaned against Jongin, wrapped up in a bubble of content. He had a date to formal, the boy that he liked liked him back, and his friends were too occupied with their petty arguments to monopolize Kyungsoo’s handmade lunch. He placed a portion of his chicken karaage onto Jongin’s plate, reveling in the dazzling smile that was returned his way.

“Jongin?” He said, the side of his face pressed to the starched fabric of the taller boy’s blazer. He felt, more than heard, Jongin’s chest rumble out a hum of acknowledgement. “Thanks for making my Cryvy Day a whole lot better.”

❅❆❅

“Holy fU-” Baekhyun shrieked, reflexively tossing one of Jongin’s cupcakes out of Sehun’s bedroom window. “I think that one bite of that poison shaved a year off of my lifespan.”

Sehun began tossing about in laughter on his bed, and Kyungsoo was too amused to feel apologetic for making Baekhyun the group’s guinea pig. In the end, he had managed to convince Jongin to let him take the cupcakes home, and Baekhyun had lost the rock-paper-scissors game between the three of them, which now led to him gagging and washing his mouth out in the bathroom sink.

“Even if his baking is vile, I have a date to prom now,” Kyungsoo couldn’t help but gloat. Sehun let out a groan, probably thinking of the fact that he was too chicken to ask the subject of his infatuation to go with him.

“But Baekhyun has a date,” Sehun revealed, and Kyungsoo sat up in surprise.

“What?” He focused his glare towards the brunette who had just stumbled out of Sehun’s en suite bathroom and collapsed into a puddle on the floor next to him. “Who? When?”

Baekhyun lifted his head a little, his cheek still pressed against the hardwood floor. “Oh look at the time, Harvard application decisions are out!”

“My rejection letter can wait,” Kyungsoo retorted. “First, does anyone want to enlighten me on the recent developments of Byun Baekhyun’s love life?”

With much difficulty, Baekhyun pulled himself up into a sitting position, pinning him with an uncharacteristically serious look. “Okay, I’ve actually been meaning to tell you this for a while.”

“Don’t mind me,” Sehun said, bouncing off of his bed and heading towards the door. “I’ll go get some popcorn and ice cream.” As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Baekhyun took a deep breath and began to fess up.

“So, you know the boy who you sit next to in calculus class?”

“Who, elf boy? How could I forget? Luckily, he doesn’t bother me anymore.”

“Yeah, I think that I might have something to do with that.” Kyungsoo’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Jongin said that he had a hand in it, too?”

“He introduced the two of us, and Chanyeol and I have been texting for a while now. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to like him, and at first I really didn’t— the boy’s been tormenting you for the better part of the school year— so all I did was chew him out, with some pretty creative expletives, too. But then, he asked me out to formal.”

Kyungsoo paused to absorb the influx of information, and Baekhyun shifted nervously in place.

“You like him, don’t you?”

“I didn’t reply to him yet.”

“But you want to say yes.”

The lack of response was all the confirmation that Kyungsoo needed.

“I know that he was a massive creep to you, and I still think that the boy is batshit crazy a lot of the time. But I can’t deny that a part of me does want to go with him. You wouldn’t mind?”

Despite the happy go lucky demeanour that Baekhyun usually put on, Kyungsoo and Sehun knew how sensitive he could be to others’ feelings and to his own. And even though Kyungsoo was most definitely  _ not  _ one of Chanyeol’s biggest fans, as long as Chanyeol was Baekhyun’s number one fan, he could probably learn to tolerate him.

“It’s not like you two are getting married,” Kyungsoo said. “It’s a school dance. And this is going to sound really cliché, but I always want what’s best for you.”

Baekhyun let out a relieved laugh, slumping against Kyungsoo’s side “No wonder why I call you my mom. Does that mean that you think that Chanyeol’s best for me?”

Privately, Kyungsoo thought that Baekhyun could do better, but it wasn’t as if he knew much about the gangly boy. He knew that he was the c0-captain of the basketball team, which meant that he was athletic and disciplined, and he was in the school choir, too. Of course, he was hot-headed and didn’t know how to take a hint, but now that he thought about it— he and Baekhyun would make a terrible, positively devilish duo.

Kyungsoo settled for a non-commital shrug, a grin tugging at the corner of his full lips. “I can’t say that he’s the  _ best _ , but I’m sure that Sehun will agree to keep close watch on him with me. And you didn’t go through a decade of hapkido training for nothing— remind me to bring a sharp mechanical pencil along to the dance though, just in case.”

“Thanks, Kyungie.”

He and Baekhyun had been freshmen when they had met on the first day of high school. Baekhyun had deceived Kyungsoo with his seemingly angelic looks and quiet demeanor, until one day the older boy had decided  _ yeah, we’re best friends now _ , unleashing a torrent of terrible jokes and incessant laughter, roping Kyungsoo into joining in with his antics. (Evidently, the Masterchef competition was Baekhyun’s idea.) They had met Sehun not much later during a school project, and meeting him was perhaps the best thing that came out of that god awful geography class all year.

And now here they were, on the cusp of adulthood, with dates to the school dance and university decisions available just a few clicks away. Sehun’s daddy-long legs were draped over his and Baekhyun was pressed against his side, the three of them huddled on Sehun’s tiny twin bed, messily spilling popcorn all over the baby blue polka-dotted sheets.

“Application status update from Seoul University,” Sehun mumbled, his pupils darting nervously across the screen of his laptop.

“I’m ready for Yonsei University’s fat rejecc,” Baekhyun said, burying his face into Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Kyungsoo refreshed his email, immediately receiving an influx of messages notifying him that ‘there was an update to your application status.’

His mouse hovered over the ‘view your application decision’ button on his screen, and he felt his heart thrumming in his chest.

The three of them had sacrificed countless meet-ups and paused their usual cinema-and-arcade Saturdays in response to the immense academic pressure of their senior year, all for admission to university. He was sure that Sehun’s mother was waiting outside of the door, his parents anxiously at their phones, and Kyungsoo desperately hoped that they would all be able to share good news.

Regardless of the outcome, of what a bunch of people in a secret meeting room thought of his test scores, his financial status, his essays, his brief stint on the swim team— “let’s watch that drama that Baekhyun’s been going on about after this?”

The two other boys brightened at that, Baekhyun quickly nodding in agreement.

“On three…”

_ Dear Mr. Kyungsoo Do, _

Baekhyun shrieked, Sehun squealed, and the Oh family dog/pig/animate cloud, Vivi, began howling at the ceiling. Kyungsoo’s heart only thudded harder.

_ I am sorry to inform you that we are unable to admit you to Harvard University this year. _

Deep breath in, then out. Onto the next university.

_ Dear Kyungsoo, _

_ On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission... _

And then, just maybe, Kyungsoo started screaming too.

  
  
  
  
  


From: Jongin

harvard application decisions came out!!

did you get accepted??

Nope :(

oh 

Sorry soo :’(

I’m really okay! Hope application decisions went well for you :)

\- sent wednesday 7:15PM-

❅❆❅

“Now I can actually understand where the superstition that pets have similar personalities to their owners comes from,” Jongin laughed, clutching a baby blue leash in one hand and a black leash in the other. At his feet, three toy poodles yipped at each other as they zig-zagged across the street, tangling their leashes around their owner’s legs.

Kyungsoo curled his fingers into the sleeves of his thick white sweater and turned to throw Jongin an amused look. “Why? Because you’re just as hyperactive as Monggu is?”

“That and the fact that Meokmul and Huchu are so well behaved.”

Kyungsoo cast a dubious glance at the tangle that the three dogs had worked themselves into. “I think that Monggu is a bad influence.”

Jongin let out a hum of agreement, playfully bumping his shoulder against Kyungsoo’s. “You’re just a better daddy than I am,” he teased, and Kyungsoo swatted a sweater paw at his head in retaliation.

“Do we need to have a serious conversation about this?”

“About what?” Jongin faced Kyungsoo, confused, until he caught the mischievous twinkle in the other boy’s eye. “Oh my god,” he flushed, immediately breaking eye contact. “I’m not into that stuff, I promise! I still call my dad that!”

Kyungsoo’s only response was to burst into laughter, Huchu regarding him with very judgy eyes from where she sat primly by Kyungsoo’s sneakers.

The pair had been making their way to the night market near their high school for the past half hour, the fading rays of the sun blanketing the city with a dream-like glow. 

While Jongin had previously spoke of his love for dogs, through texting, Kyungsoo had quickly found out that Jongin was  _ the definition _ of a dog lover, what with the hundreds of photos of his fluffy “children” that he spammed Kyungsoo’s phone with and the hour-long tirades he could go on talking about them. He only found it hopelessly endearing, even though he loved to bitch to Sehun about his overwhelming, everlasting, undying love for Vivi. (“And Vivi’s so smart—” “He can’t even sit still for one second without you bribing him with rib eye steak, Sehun. And even then...”)

Jongin had originally meant to bring all three of his dogs along on their date(!), but apparently he didn’t trust his other two more rambunctious pets to behave. Still, Monggu’s behaviour as the supposed “quiet one” served as quite the culture shock to Kyungsoo’s two dogs.

As they were enveloped by the thrumming energy of the night market, the alluring scent of street food lured the two boys to excitedly dart towards the nearest vendors, drooling over the steaming spicy rice cakes and the bubbling fish cake broth that sent wisps of steam up into the darkening sky. 

“Fish cakes?” Kyungsoo suggested, and Jongin nodded rapidly in response.

Soon they found themselves perched on a small bench, balancing an array of snacks between them. Kyungsoo clutched two tornado potatoes in one hand and two hot dogs in the other, letting out a hum of thanks when Jongin took his two leashes and looped them loosely around the bench’s armrest.

“Maybe we went a little overboard,” Kyungsoo laughed as Jongin’s arm shot out to stop a styrofoam container of ddeokbokki from teetering towards the ground (and into the dogs’ waiting jaws).

“Nah, I think you underestimate me,” Jongin said, taking an inhumanly large bite out of his hot dog as if to prove his point.

Kyungsoo opted to roll his eyes, playfully muttering that it was “always the ones who are useless in the kitchen who eat the most.”

“Hey,” Jongin protested indignantly, “I’m trying to improve! I made rice without burning it yesterday!”

“How revolutionary, Masterchef of mine.”

The next few minutes were spent in comfortable silence, punctuated only by quiet munching (which Kyungsoo was unbelievably thankful for, Baekhyun’s loud chomping having driven him to near insanity over the past few years). He was just polishing off the last bite of his squid kimbap when Jongin’s voice suddenly rang out into the open.

“Kyungsoo? Have you ever had a boyfriend before?”

He felt his eyes widen as he processed the question. “No,” he said quietly. Then, “have you?”

Despite being known by the student body as a perpetual “single king” (Baekhyun’s words, not his), maybe Jongin had had a secret relationship sometime in the past. Like the kind of playground relationship that Kyungsoo had adamantly avoided back in elementary school, or maybe a fellow dancer at Jongin’s dance academy, like the Taemin guy that was all over his instagram account. (And okay, maybe Kyungsoo only knew about him because he had cyber-stalked Jongin for hours one night and forgot to finish his homework for the first time in forever.)

“Me neither.”

“...girlfriends?”

“Nope, I knew pretty much from the start that girls weren’t for me. And honestly, I’ve always thought of dating in high school as being too frivolous, and I hated watching how some people would tell a different person that they loved them every week. I just wanted to wait for someone who I’d really want to spend my forever with, you know?” Jongin’s passionate stare was practically boring into Kyungsoo’s soul, and the older boy worried at his lower lip as he contemplated whether his next move would be pushing things too far. But Jongin had asked him to formal, hadn’t he? That had to mean that he liked Kyungsoo enough to want his company, and hopefully liked him enough to at least let him down gently.

“Was that too much?” Jongin asked, apprehensive.

Screw it, Kyungsoo thought. 

“I want us to last,” Kyungsoo said, lacing the other boy’s greasy fingers with his and tilting their heads closer together. “I like you, Jongin. I can’t promise to always be the perfect boyfriend, but I can promise that I’ll never stop trying.”

Jongin let out a content sigh, shifting to rest his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. His hold on Kyungsoo’s fingers tightened, and Kyungsoo felt his heart rate accelerate.

“I like you too, perfect boyfriend of mine.”

They remained in that position for a while, content to bask in the glow of the street lights and the warmth of each other. Kyungsoo couldn’t believe that this was happening, and only the gentle thump of Jongin’s heartbeat and the fluttering of his breath against his neck made him believe that this all was anything more than a figment of his imagination.

Their little bubble of warm fish broth and the giddiness of new love was shattered when Monggu suddenly perked up from where he was resting beneath their bench, lunging forward to furiously yip at a tiny black toy poodle passing by.

“Monggu! No!” Jongin shouted, immediately leaping up to collect his child. “I am so so sorry,” he said, scooping the brown pooch up to hold him to his chest. “He—oh!”

Kyungsoo gave Meokmul and Huchu gentle pats on their heads, praising them under his breath for being so well behaved, before standing to make his way over to Jongin. “Hey Baekhyun,” he greeted.

Said boy’s arm was linked with tall elf boy’s, his other hand gripping his corgi’s leash. Luckily, it appeared that Jongin wouldn’t be facing a legal battle over his dog’s misbehaviour anytime soon, as Chanyeol reached down to lift the black poodle into his arms, who immediately flailed his way out of his owner’s grip. Mongryong excitedly bounced around Kyungsoo’s legs, probably recognizing his familiar scent, completely ignorant of his owner’s sudden nervousness. Kyungsoo couldn’t help but smirk a little.

“So, I see that you’re very busy  _ at home working on your physics lab _ ,” Kyungsoo lilted. “Wait until Sehun hears the real reason that you bailed on him.”

“Well it’s not my fault—”

“You kind of have to take responsibility, you know.”

“I told him to use protection, it’s that brat who didn’t listen,” Baekhyun huffed.

Beside him, Chanyeol’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Baekhyun, is there something that you’re not telling me?”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. “What?”

“Did you get Sehun pregnant?”

Kyungsoo and Jongin doubled over in laughter, while Baekhyun looked at Chanyeol as if he had suddenly grown 10-foot antlers and was preaching about the joys of window-washing to a congregation of banana slugs. “What the FUCK, no, did you ever take health class?? Life isn’t an mpreg fanfiction! No vagina equals no baby, and Sehun is my  _ best friend.  _ Nothing more, nothing less.”

Chanyeol began to look sheepish, and Kyungsoo decided to step in and put him out of his misery.

“Baekhyun got Sehun hooked onto this drama, and he’s been watching it from some sketchy sites, so Baek recommended a few adblockers for him to use which he was too lazy to install. He texted us this morning panicking about pop-up ads that wouldn’t go away enticing him to ‘hook up with hot grandmas near you’ and freaked, and since Baekhyun had experience with solving the issue Sehun asked him for help. But he claimed that he had physics homework to do and couldn’t make it, and here we are.”

“I’ll make it up to him,” Baekhyun sighed, “a week of free bubble tea should do it. And I  _ may  _ have ditched him for my date, but you did the same thing too, you hypocrite!”

“I’ve never had the experience purging my laptop of porn viruses, and he asked for  _ your  _ help,” Kyungsoo argued.

Baekhyun only playfully rolled his eyes in return, conceding the point. “I’ll let you get back to fawning over Jongin, then.” The two turned to watch Chanyeol and Jongin kneeling on the floor, the dogs all barking and wagging their tails playfully. When had his date turned into a pet sitting service? Kyungsoo jabbed Baekhyun in the side before turning to discard the various wrappers and containers left on the bench into the nearby trashbin.

By the time that he had returned, Chanyeol had stood up, holding his poodle’s leash in one hand and Mongryong’s in the other. He waved at the couple as they began to make their way down the street, before Baekhyun suddenly paused in his tracks and turned back around.

“Kyungsoo?”

“Yeah?”

“Let me borrow your physics notes tomorrow, okay?”

Without waiting for Kyungsoo’s reply, he beamed and linked his arm with Chanyeol’s, sparing Kyungsoo a quick wink before briskly trotting away. The pair was quickly enveloped into the bustling crowd (though if Kyungsoo squinted, he could still pinpoint Chanyeol’s head and pointy ears above them all).

_ God _ , Baekhyun so owed him one.

Beside him, Jongin gently nudged him with his elbow. “Never a dull moment with your friends around,” he murmured, “but I still prefer just being with you.”

❅❆❅

So maybe Kyungsoo was abnormal in the fact that he liked math class, but according to his friends, he was also a “malfunctioning stubby penguin” for despising physical education, aka PE aka Kyungsoo’s greatest nightmare. He hated the feeling of sweat on his skin, the way that his dirtied clothes clung to his body and how he seemed to overheat so easily, turning his face into a bright red tomato after a few laps around the gym. They had just finished a month of classes focus on cross country that had culminated in a 5 kilometer run around the school premises, which had made Kyungsoo wish that he had stayed home “sick” instead of having to go through such ardous torture.

Today’s main event was a game of capture the flag, which always quickly devolved into a free-for-all during which Kyungsoo just desperately tried to hide away from the world while his friends enthusiastically wreaked havoc. Even worse, this time his friends were all assigned to the opposing team, leaving Kyungsoo all on his own. Thankfully his team won the preliminary game of rock paper scissors, which meant that the other team had to put on colored training bibs to differentiate the two sets of players— training bibs that had been accumulating sweat and festering in the storage cabinet without having been washed for the last decade. He caught Sehun and Baekhyun sharing a disgusted grimace while putting them on on the other side of the field, and he felt an amused grin play out over his face.

The whistle signaling the start of the game was blown, and he was surveying the battle ground to determine the safest area to make his “home base” when suddenly Yifan and Chanyeol, the two twin towers— known for being the co-captains of the basketball team— sidled up to him. Kyungsoo regarded them warily, watching as Yifan not-so-subtley nudged Chanyeol’s side, prompting the elf boy to reluctantly step in front of him.

“I wanted to apologize,” Chanyeol blurted out, “for being such a pushy rude creature to you before. And for misleading you, because I kinda didn’t like you to begin with?”

Wow, information overload. “Okay?” Kyungsoo articulated very sophisticatedly.

“I liked Baekhyun but I had no classes with him so I had to resort to desperate measures to get his attention, and you were just sitting next to me in calculus class that day and I knew you were apart of the his smart people squad so I just thought that maybe if I went after you he would notice me and then, uh,” Chanyeol trailed off, before literally face palming. As in physically bringing his palm up to smack his own face. Kyungsoo had never seen someone do that in real life before, but you learn something new every day?

“It was a stupid plan,” Yifan quipped from the side, and Chanyeol mockingly scowled back at him.

“But, yeah,” he puttered awkwardly, “thank you for putting up with me, I’m really sorry, and I promised that I will never call you Soobabe again.”

The mere mention of the name had Kyungsoo’s face involuntarily wrinkle in disgust, but he quickly recollected himself. “Duly noted, I appreciate it.”

Chanyeol opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound he was bowled over by someone wearing a red sports bib who had a blue flag gripped firmly in their hands, cackling maniacally while they sprinted towards the opposite side of the playing field.

“Why, Luhan?” Chanyeol moaned from where he was splayed out on the floor, and Yifan’s only response was to begin to cackle. “You could have easily avoided me, you speedy evil human deer!”

The whistle was blown to signal the opposing team’s victory, and Luhan pranced towards them, a smug grin plastered on his face while he waved towards his imaginary fans in the stands. “You were in between me and the goal, and sacrifices must be made to secure victory,” he projected dramatically, a tearful expression on his face as he looked off into the distance.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to have a conversation in the middle of a dodgeball game,” Yifan mused, to which Kyungsoo vehemently agreed. While Chanyeol and Luhan were arranging their rematch, arguing over which version of Mario Party would be played to determine the Ultimate Champion of Manly Beasts, he waved at Yifan before heading towards the locker room.

PE Class- January 31st

Reviewer: Do Kyungsoo

★★★★★

  * Managed to avoid sweating for the entire gym period— dry fit polo remained completely dry
  * Didn’t have to run— feigned headache during warmups
  * Didn’t have to wear sweaty sports bibs
  * Made new friends (?)



❅❆❅

A few nights later, Kyungsoo was working on an English paper at his desk— this time a lovely review on his favorite anime series,  _ Prince of Tennis _ — when his phone suddenly rang from where it sat on his bedside table. He was entirely immersed into describing the emotional impact of the series’ characterization (no, he hadn’t cried, dammit) and offhandedly decided to mentally block out the incessant ringing in favor of finishing out his trail of thought. It was probably just Sehun or Baekhyun wanting to rant about their sort-of-boyfriends or panicking over their homework assignments, anyways, and Kyungsoo thought that he should probably be thankful that they were calling at a more civilized hour of the day this time around.

As soon as he finished the paragraph, he scooted on his spinny desk chair across the room to check his notifications. Missed video call from Jongin?

Before he even knew what he was doing, he had pressed the “return call” button, and a few seconds later, Jongin’s face was filling up the tiny screen of his old Samsung Galaxy. The younger boy was wearing an adorable mocha brown hoodie with tiny bear ears sewed on top, sporting a tentative smile.

“Hi Kyungsoo,” he said, “I hope I’m not interrupting you?”

Suddenly conscious of his appearance, Kyungsoo reached up to run his hand through his hair and pushed the frame of his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Nope, I was just doing some homework. Sorry you have to see me like this,” he laughed nervously.

Jongin giggled at that, poking at Kyungsoo’s face through the screen. “You’re always cute, Soo.”

_ No, I’m 110% certain that I look like shit after slaving away on assignments for the past few hours, _ Kyungsoo wanted to reply, and he wondered if Jongin was lying through his teeth, or—

Kyungsoo squinted. “You aren’t wearing your contacts, are you?”

Jongin puffed his chest out proudly at that, proclaiming, “of course I am! My vision is very clear, thank you very much, but the crappy quality of your camera isn’t doing you justice.”

“Says the cute boy in the fuzzy bear hoodie,” Kyungsoo mumbled, immediately hoping that his microphone was as terrible as his camera was and that it had failed to pick up his embarrassing words. To no avail, it seemed, when he heard Jongin’s laugh echo back through his phone.

“What homework were you working on? I spent _ two hours _ finishing off that god awful calculus worksheet… when am I ever going to need to know how to calculate the volume of a parallelepiped anyways?”

Oh. Maybe Jongin wanted help with his homework? Or maybe wanted to schedule a study date? There  _ was _ a quiz coming up in a few days.

“Is that why you called? I can send you a copy of my notes if you’d like, or we can meet up at the café after school tomorrow?”

Jongin’s lips parted to form a surprised o. “Uh, no. I actually have to tell you something.” Kyungsoo heard Jongin release a long breath before he began to speak again. 

“I have to go to this charity gala with my family,” he rushed out. Nothing out of the ordinary, Kyungsoo thought, though he privately wouldn’t mind seeing Jongin all dressed up for such a fancy event, helping him smooth out his lapels and looping a delicate silk tie into a perfect windsor knot against the base of his neck—

“I can’t go to formal.” 

Kyungsoo felt himself freeze in place as Jongin frantically continued, “it’s not that I don’t want to go with you or something because  _ god _ I do, but parents just told me about that event that they’re making me attend and it’s scheduled for the same night as the school dance.” 

Kyungsoo inhaled deeply and pulled himself together, reminding himself that it was just a stupid school dance and that he didn’t want to watch his friends grind on each other or get wasted, anyways. Even though he’d been looking forward to the event ever since Jongin had baked him those equal part vile and amazing cupcakes of his, planting all sorts of imaginary scenarios and promises in Kyungsoo’s mind. “I probably should have thought this through better,” he heard Jongin say, rather sullenly, “but I called you as soon as I found out, so that maybe…”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe you would have enough time to ask someone to go with you.”

Kyungsoo couldn’t help but to giggle at that. “What, you’d be okay with your boyfriend slow dancing with someone else?”

The crease between Jongin’s eyebrows only deepened. “I meant as a friend!” He protested, fidgeting with the aglet of his hoodie string.

The pair grew silent as Kyungsoo quietly contemplated his life choices. Luhan and Sehun would be going together, as would Baekhyun and Chanyeol, and Junmyeon and Easter-bunny-Yifan. And that left Kyungsoo, The Seventh Wheel ™ .

“Kyungsoo?” Jongin suddenly piped up. “You can say no,” he prefaced, “don’t feel obligated or anything, but you could come to the gala with me? It’s supposed to end at nine, so we can go to formal after, and we can probably leave early from the event if you want to.”

“Me?” Kyungsoo blanched, “go to your fancy company gala?” Jongin only nodded back at him, expression serious and his tiny bear ears flopping back and forward with his movement.

All the strangers and the fragile crystalline glasses of champagne with long boring speeches by chairmen, fake smiles and giant chandeliers practically screaming opulence— Kyungsoo knew that he didn’t belong in that world, and the mere thought of stepping foot in such a foreign environment made him shudder in his seat. But Jongin would be there. Maybe that would be enough.

“I’ll think about it,” he eventually replied, because part of him didn’t want to be so scared anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Jongin’s voice reverberated through the phone. “For ruining formal and for being selfish and for interrupting your study session.”

“Don’t be,” was all Kyungsoo could say, “my analysis on  _ The Prince of Tennis _ can wait.” And then, impulsively: “what should I wear to the gala?”

Jongin’s tinkling laughter seemed to surround him, enveloping him with the familiarity of his worn comforter and sounding a whole lot like his new favorite song. “Anything you’d like, Soo. I trust you.”

❅❆❅

“Remind me to NEVER trust you again,” Baekhyun hissed out, digging through the clothes in his closet like a deranged werewolf, articles of clothing that hadn’t fit Kyungsoo in years being flung all over his room. Huchu was staring at him with her trademark judgy-eyes, and Sehun was splayed out unhelpfully like a lanky starfish on Kyungsoo’s Pororo comforter.

“What?” Kyungsoo pouted, giving himself a quick once over. The three of them had congregated at his house after school to “get ready for formal,” which had made absolutely zero sense to him when the event was still more than a week away. But there he was, dressed in his older brother’s suit that he had dug out of the back of his parents’ closet. The suit maybe wasn’t the most fashionable— it had been around five years since it had last been used— and maybe it hurt that Seungsoo was a few inches taller than him, but Kyungsoo thought that the classic, clean black suit looked—

“Ugly and boring,” Baekhyun enunciated, shaking his head in disgust. “There is no WAY that you are going to formal, let alone the gala, with that on.” Kyungsoo looked towards Sehun for support, but the traitor only nodded in agreement as he took a sip out of his cup of apple cider. “And it’s not like anything in your closet looks remotely formal enough.

“It’s only four thirty,” Sehun mumbled, his voice distorted from the way that his face was smushed into Pororo’s beak. “There are some pretty nice shops in Myeongdong, wanna go?”

Baekhyun paused amidst his scavenging, three pairs of trousers in varying shades of grey slung on each arm, before quickly reversing his course of action and beginning to shove clothes randomly back into Kyungsoo’s drawers. Kyungsoo winced when he saw his collection of khakis (there was a sale, okay,) being shoved into his school uniform drawer.

“I’m in!” Baekhyun chirped. “I’ve been meaning to look for a new tie, and we can all go shopping together.”

“And get bubble tea and dinner,” Sehun added, doing a full body wiggle that made him look like a possessed pasta noodle as he slid off of Kyungsoo’s twin-sized bed. “Come on, Kyungsoo! I’m sure that your parents will let you come.”

Kyungsoo soon found himself bundled into his penguin scarf, his mom’s credit card in one pocket of his winter jacket and his phone in the other, sandwiched between his two best friends as Sehun and Baekhyun began to window shop in earnest.

The trio had just entered a rather fancy looking boutique— the kind with sales associates whose judgy eyes could give Huchu a run for her money and faux marble tiles lining the floor— when a familiar figure perusing a display of colorful silk ties caught Kyungsoo’s attention. “Junmyeon?” He called out, and said boy looked up in surprise, his features softening into a smile in recognition.

“Hi Kyungsoo, Sehun, Baekhyun,” he greeted, struggling to juggle the numerous suit jackets and pairs of slacks in his arms while waving hello. Kyungsoo reached out to take a few articles from his hold, earning a  _ thank you _ as Baekhyun and Sehun roped poor Junmyeon into an argument over whether the shade of a particular suit jacket was closer to midnight or royal blue.

Upon closer inspection, holy shit, it looked like Junmyeon had picked out articles of clothing by Gucci, Dior, and Givenchy… was he getting ready to grind against Yifan on a dirty dance floor full of intoxicated teenagers or was he carefully assembling a wardrobe for a fashion cruise in Arles?

Baekhyun seemed to pick up on the same details, his eyes zeroing into the labels on the garments in Junmyeon’s arms. “You’re wearing  _ Saint Laurent _ to the school dance? And Kyungsoo thought it was unreasonable to, and I quote,  _ splurge _ , on a suit from H&M,” he scoffed.

“He’s right though,” came Sehun, as impassive as ever. “If you’re handsome enough you don’t need an expensive outfit to look good.” He broke into a grin at Baekhyun’s mortified expression, giving a giggling Kyungsoo a high five.

Junmyeon just worriedly glanced at Baekhyun (who was probably planning Sehun’s funeral in his head), then cleared his throat awkwardly before clarifying, “this suit isn’t actually for the school dance. Well I guess it sort of is, but it’s also for the gala, which is the only reason why such an expensive suit is ever needed,” he amended, a tiny grin forming on his face. “I’m not a huge fan of designer clothing myself.”

“The same gala that Jongin’s going to? On the night of formal?” Baekhyun  asked demanded, forcing himself into Junmyeon’s personal space. The (very very slightly) shorter boy blinked up at him in confusion, breathing out a quiet  _ yes _ ?

“It’s my family’s gala,” Junmyeon admitted, “and Jongin’s family is attending.”

“So am I,” Kyungsoo squeaked out, and Junmyeon regarded him in pleasant surprise.

“An H&M suit won’t do then,” he laughed, “especially if you’re hanging off of Jongin’s arm. His family is… pretty well known, so their guests will probably be scrutinized pretty heavily.”

Baekhyun snickered out something along the lines of  _ I told you so _ , and Kyungsoo could feel the cogs in his mind spinning as he tried to figure out where he could get a designer suit for a price that wouldn’t eat into his life savings. Goodwill? Or maybe he could get Baekhyun to stalk out a celebrity designer’s house and rummage through the garbage for discarded clothes.

“I would let you borrow one of my suits,” Jumyeon said, interrupting his mental image of Baekhyun covered in rotting caviar, “but I can think of something even better. You deserve something that’s made for you. Yifan’s cousin is a designer, and I’m sure that he’d be happy to help you out.”

Before Kyungsoo could even earnestly reply with a  _ thank you _ , Sehun was curiously asking, “why do you need all of those designer suits then?”

Junmyeon flushed to his roots, awkwardly shifting in place before rushing out, “they’re not for methey’reforYifan.”

The three boys exchanged a glance, unsurprised. “Might as well stop denying that you and Yifan are a thing now,” Baekhyun said happily.

“Yifan’s not wearing his cousin’s designs?”

Junmyeon chose to ignore Baekhyun’s comment, instead replying to Sehun, “he and Zitao have this little petty argument going on. I think Yifan once chose to wear an ensemble from Givenchy instead of one of Zitao’s creations and he’s been banned from wearing his new pieces for a few months now.”

“Are you sure that his cousin would be okay with letting me borrow something? I don’t mind if it’s from last season or something, or from a few years ago, for that matter,” Kyungsoo said, only to be met with Junmyeon’s raised eyebrows.

“I’m sure he would be happy to,” he said kindly, “especially when he sees how great you’ll make his designs look.” Kyungsoo tried to suppress his blush at that comment, but he looked up from his sneakers when the tone of Junmyeon’s voice suddenly grew much heavier. “But Kyungsoo, I meant it when I said that people will be scrutinizing you. I don’t mean to scare you off, and I’m sure that it means the world to Jongin that you’re willing to attend the gala with him, but the truth is that the event will probably be rather… boring, unless you’re the type of person who enjoys shallow small talk, which I know you aren’t. Even growing up going to one of these events every month, talking to business people with rather sordid intentions is still rather unpleasant, and this gala is one of the biggest events of the year. Just dress up nicely and stick to us, and you should be fine.”

“Thanks, Junmyeon. I’m really glad that you’re going to be there.”

“Don’t thank me,” Junmyeon grinned, “you’ll find anywhere fun when Jongin’s around, I’m sure.”

“Is that the same reason that you’re going to the gala with Yifan?”

“Yes— we’re not— I mean, okay fine, we’re together.” Despite his reluctance, Junmyeon’s face was still painted with a satisfied grin.

“Chanyeol owes me a pork cutlet,” Baekhyun sing-songed, “I knew you couldn’t keep your paws off of each other during those oh-so-secret student council meetings.” Sehun patted Junmyeon’s shoulder consolingly, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Speaking of food, want to eat dinner with us? There's a pretty nice hot pot place around the corner.”

“And bubble tea after,” Sehun whined, and Kyungsoo laughed, linking his arm with the taller boy’s.

“I think the store’s security guards are giving us the stink eye— let’s get out of here.”


	3. Starry Night

Group chat “kool kids XD”: Jongin 🧸🐶, Kim Junmyeon, 😎MANhan⚽, HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇, 💕vivi’s dad💕, Kyungsoo

**Kim Junmyeon**

Happy Saturday everyone :) I’m excited for formal tonight! How are you guys getting to the venue?

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

Hiiiii good morning

Wow I’m actually up before noon on a weekend this is life changing

Chanyeol and I are taking the subway to formal lmao

**😎MANhan⚽**

Yo bois

Sehun and I are taking the subway too

What stop are you guys meeting at? We should meet up for dinner beforehand

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

Euljiro 1-ga?

There’s a spicy stir fried chicken place there and bubble tea for Sehun

**😎MANhan⚽**

Sounds good!! See you at 6?

We’re going to be all dressed up at a random restaurant lol

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

Gotta bless people with our good looks ;)

Btw Kyungie, vivi’s sugardaddy and I will be at your house at noon so please have food for us thx

**💕vivi’s dad💕**

Such disrespect

But I shall forgive you for the low price of two (2) bubble teas

One choco and one taro for me and luhan

**😎MANhan⚽**

<3

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

*throws up on vivi*

**💕vivi’s dad💕**

hEY >:(

Don’t bring vivi into this he is an innocent soul

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

An innocent soul who decided to shred my English assignment to pieces aklfjlksjflkejwkrjek

**Jongin 🧸🐶**

i like chicken but soo and i can’t make it to the dinner :(

and dogs are always innocent

**Kim Junmyeon**

Neither can I, gala starts at 4 and I have to survive off of cocktail shrimp and croutons for dinner :( I’ll see you guys later in the night though?

Which reminds me Kyungsoo

Did Yifan give you the package?

**Kyungsoo**

Morning everyone

And yes he did, thank you Junmyeon :)

Sebaek miso salmon’s in the oven

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

h3ll y3s l8tr bitch3s

**Kim Junmyeon**

??

**😎MANhan⚽**

The miso salmon brings all the boys to the yard

;)

**Jongin 🧸🐶**

i mean chicken does too

and soo

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

*throws up on Monggu*

Say that again and I’ll get Jjangah and Jjanggu too

❅❆❅

“Baekhyun, no,” Kyungsoo warned, shrinking into his chair as Baekhyun brought various pointy objects all too close to his face. Call it his primal flight or fight instinct that he had learned from the penguin documentary he had gotten hooked on, but Kyungsoo’s mental calculator had deduced that Baekhyun + Sharp Things + Kyungsoo’s Face = Disaster of Cataclysmic Proportions.

Baekhyun simply uncapped his eyeliner, then laid out his array of supplies all over Kyungsoo’s desk— his school supplies and the calculus problem set that he had been working on shoved to the floor to make space for what Baekhyun deemed to be the ‘infinitely more important items.’ He and Sehun had gobbled down a few servings of salmon after arriving at Kyungsoo’s house at around noon, and afterwards, they may or may not have watched a few episodes of that guilty pleasure drama that Sehun had sacrificed his laptop’s porn virus virginity for. They had since dressed up into their outfits for the night, and were now splayed out all across Kyungsoo’s bedroom as usual, the space that Baekhyun had commandeered into his personal beauty salon.

“Baekhyun, yes,” he said, punctuating his speech with terrifying snaps of the hair straightener which Kyungsoo privately thought looked nothing short of a cauterizing death machine. “Come on Kyungsoo, ever since I saw that gorgeous suit I’ve had this look planned out in my head! And the birthday voucher was for a full makeover, and makeup is definitely part of the deal.”

What Baekhyun was right about was that Zitao’s design was indeed breathtaking, a thought that had been running through Kyungsoo’s mind since he had picked up the suit from a begrudging Yifan after school a few days prior. (“Don’t feel like you have to wear his design,” Yifan had said, “A suit by literally  _ any other designer _ might fit you better.”)

It was a rich midnight blue, almost black in the dark but shimmering blue in the light, with wide lapels and two buttons that pulled the heavy fabric in at his waist. Along with it was a crisp off-white dress shirt, erring towards grey, and a deep blue tie with tiny embroidered stars stitched all over with silver thread. And despite what Yifan had said, it fit perfectly, and had Kyungsoo breaking out into a grin when peeking at himself in a mirror for the first time. Sehun’s reaction was much more unrestrained, snapping numerous pictures for god-knows-what and marveling over the texture of the fabric between his fingers. Meanwhile, Baekhyun had retreated into his head, already planning for Kyungsoo to wear—

“Blue eyeshadow,” Baekhyun declared, and Sehun furiously nodded his head in agreement from where he was bent over the bathroom sink, probably counting the number of strands of hair on his head or partaking in some other vaguely pointless activity in that vein. Kyungsoo had coiffed his hair up with minimal amounts of gel, exposing his forehead and subjecting his face to Baekhyun’s every whim. When was the last time that he had dressed up as nicely as this? Probably never, if you were to exclude the number of times that he had donned the traditional  _ hanbok _ to attend his distant relatives’ weddings. Kyungsoo was definitely pushing himself out of his comfort zone tonight— hell, he’d never even tasted a crouton before, and that appeared to be one of his only forms of sustenance for the entire evening— and he thought that maybe a little bit of makeup couldn’t hurt, after all.

There was also a part of him that was nervous about letting Jongin down, not wanting to appear looking like Shrek beside his boyfriend. Kyungsoo knew that he wasn’t ugly, by any means, without makeup, but he did want to make an effort to look his best. He wanted Jongin to be proud to have Kyungsoo next to him, and it wasn’t just that— he also wanted to dress up for himself, to feel truly handsome for a night, to have his internal happiness and glow be projected both inside and out. But ultimately, maybe it was because he was a little drunk off of the strawberry banana smoothie that the three had shared during lunch when he merely nodded towards Baekhyun, assenting to the proffered beauty products with a smile on his face.

“Oh my GOD,” Baekhyun squealed, hands immediately flying to open his giant eyeshadow palette. “Close your eyes, Kyungie. You won’t regret this, I promise.”

When his eyes flew open a few minutes later, Kyungsoo looked into the mirror and was pleased to see that he still looked like himself, just with darkly defined eyes, accented with shades of grey and blue. He thanked Baekhyun by pulling him into a hug, who had just patted Kyungsoo’s backside before moving to do his own makeup.

A glance at the clock told him that it was approaching 3:30, which was when Jongin had agreed to pick him up at his apartment. Just as Kyungsoo was standing in the entryway of his home, carefully tying on his shiny black dress shoes, he felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder.

Sehun spun him around, his expression resolute. “Good luck, Kyungie. Don’t let what those crouton-eating creatures say get to you, okay?”

“Try to stick to the rich brats that we’re actually friends with,” Baekhyun joked, before adding more seriously, “and call us right away if something goes wrong. Nothing at a school dance is more important than you… not even Chanyeol, and especially not the shitty music.” He tucked a mechanical pencil into Kyungsoo’s pocket as a good luck charm/lethal weapon, “in case someone pulls some funny business.” Kyungsoo privately promised himself not to interrupt his friends for something that wasn’t all too serious, but all the same, he briefly linked their hands together in gratitude.

Just then, his phone pinged with a text message from Jongin announcing his imminent arrival, and Kyungsoo stuffed his phone and his house keys into his pocket before stepping out of the front door. 

He waved goodbye to Sehun and Baekhyun, rolling his eyes when they pretended to dramatically wipe their tears away because  _ our son is all grown up _ . “I thought I was your mom,” Kyungsoo grumbled quietly. A quick elevator ride brought him down to the lobby of his apartment building, where Jongin’s Tesla Roadster sat out front.

Jongin stepped out of his vehicle, rubbing his hands together in the cold with a grin on his face, and Kyungsoo couldn’t help but give him an appreciative once over. He was dressed in a double breasted iron blue suit, a few shades lighter than Kyungsoo’s own, with a blue-and-white striped dress shirt, a Gucci monogrammed tie, and a black, studded choker wrapped around the deliciously bronze skin of his neck.

“What’s with the choker?” Kyungsoo inquired, once the pair had settled into the mercifully heated seats of the car.

Jongin tossed his head back in laughter. “I was dumb enough to bet against Luhan, and here I am. I’ll take it off for the event though, can’t imagine what the business partners would think of this.”

“It looks good on you,” Kyungsoo said, almost as if he was revealing a secret, and Jongin ducked his head in pleasure.

The trip to Seoul’s Chosun Hotel was full of mindless banter, of jokes and compliments that fell all too easily off of their tongues. When Jongin was suddenly stopping the car, unclasping the choker around his neck, Kyungsoo suddenly felt all of his anxiousness hit him like a ton of bricks, along with the sudden realization that he would soon be meeting Jongin’s parents, amongst other people that belonged to this mysterious world of opulence.

“Hey,” Jongin said, leaning over the centre console. He reached out to clasp Kyungsoo’s hand with his own, and leaned in to whisper, “you don’t have to do this. I can drive you back home if you want.”

Kyungsoo straightened from where he was slouched in his seat, leaning into Jongin and inhaling the earthy scent of his perfume. “No, I want to. For you, and for me, too.”

Jongin palm cupped Kyungsoo’s round cheek, tilting his face until their eyes met, drawing close enough for his rapid breaths to fan over Kyungsoo’s face.

“Can I?” Jongin breathed, and Kyungsoo responded by pressing closer until their lips met in a gentle kiss. Kyungsoo instinctively clutched at the peaked lapels of Jongin’s suit jacket, feeling the rapid thudding of his heartbeat beneath the sturdy fabric that matched the fervor of his own.

While Kyungsoo had never experienced what it was like to kiss someone before, he thought that he could finally understand what those young adult novels had been going on about. Maybe there wasn’t fireworks or an angelic chorus as background music, but the feeling of Jongin’s plush lips against his filled Kyungsoo with a pleasant sensation, full of such warmth and excitement and comfort that he thought that he never wanted it to end.

When Jongin eventually pulled away, he seemed dazed, his eyes unfocused and lips colored with hints of Kyungsoo’s lip tint. “I… was that okay?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo smiled, leaning in to peck Jongin on the cheek. “Couldn’t have been better.”

A polite knock on the window caused the pair to jump in their seat, only to see a curious valet peering in from the driver’s side window. Jongin let out an airy laugh, squeezing Kyungsoo’s hand one last time before stepping out of the vehicle and rounding the car to the passenger side.

Kyungsoo avoided eye contact with the valet, rather mortified by their audience, and Jongin too practically tossed the car’s key fob at the poor man before making his escape, Kyungsoo in tow.

They stood in the crisp winter air, just about to enter the hotel lobby, when Kyungsoo paused mid step to face Jongin and smooth out the lapels that he had crumpled in his hold. “I’m nervous,” he admitted.

“There’s no need to be. I’ll stick to you as much as possible, and Junmyeon and Yifan should be around, too. If anything, I’m the one who should be worried about the attention you’ll attract with how handsome you’re looking right now.”

“Says Mr. Kim Jongin,” Kyungsoo said, rolling his eyes, but his heart felt considerably lighter as he and Jongin made their way to the ballroom.

The air seemed to glitter off of the iridescent crystal chandeliers, and with every step, Kyungsoo felt his feet sink into the plush carpet beneath his feet. A string quartet filled the room with the swell of classical music, and the area was filled with hundreds of others, conversing over glasses of champagne and cocktail shrimp. Eyes darting rapidly from left to right in hopes of taking it all in, he noticed that many other guests were dressed in extravagant dresses and perfectly tailored suits, often accessorized with what looked like twenty pounds of glittering jewelry. Frankly, it was all quite unsettling, and Kyungsoo forced himself to remain standing at his full height, resisting the urge to curl into Jongin’s side.

Jongin was striding through the expansive room with purpose, and it was all Kyungsoo could do to follow closely behind, his eyes pinned to the flare of Jongin’s suit jacket out from his narrow waist. He suddenly found himself bumping into Jongin’s back, not having noticed when the taller boy had stopped walking, instead politely bowing down to greet a young woman dressed in a blood red ball gown.

“Who’s this?” She asked, her voice tinged with amusement, perfectly manicured nails clutching a tall flute of champagne, her gaze roving up and down Kyungsoo’s body curiously.

Kyungsoo felt Jongin’s hand land on his shoulder, and before he could formulate a reply, Jongin was saying, “this is Do Kyungsoo, he’s one of my classmates.”

Oh, so did Kim Jongin kiss his  _ classmates  _ now? Kyungsoo forced a smile and bowed at the woman, reminding himself that it was rather impractical to have Jongin announce him as his boyfriend in a room full of influential strangers.

“Love the suit, custom AB Couture?”

Kyungsoo hesitantly nodded, remembering the letters  _ AB  _ that had been stitched on the label at the back of his suit. “Thank you, Huang Zitao designed it,” Kyungsoo supplied, choosing his words carefully. The woman nodded in understanding.

“I’m Park Sooyoung,” she said, “Zitao’s a good friend of mine. You’re Junmyeon’s friend, aren’t you? Actually, Zitao should be around here somewhere, he’d love to meet you. He was so worried that the suit wouldn’t fit properly, but look at you!”

Jongin suddenly hooked his arm around the small of Kyungsoo’s waist. Kyungsoo looked up at him in confusion, but Jongin was already saying, “sorry Sooyoung, we’ll catch you around later, okay?” Kyungsoo craned his neck backwards to cast the kind woman an apologetic smile, and she cheerfully waved him away.

It turned out that the man that Jongin was now talking to was a Harvard board member, as Kyungsoo discerned from the little tidbits of conversation that filtered through his brain. Beside them stood his two teenage daughters— “future Harvard students,” as he had introduced them. It was all he could do to suppress his glare when he noticed them eyeing Jongin in obvious interest, and he felt his eye twitch as he strained to keep a pleasant smile on his face.  _ If only they knew,  _ he thought bitterly, only to once again revel in the delight that he was able to call Jongin his.

Jongin seemed oblivious to it all, too absorbed in discussing some business seminar that he was excited about with the middle aged man. It was odd to Kyungsoo how Jongin was suddenly so good at small talk, carrying out dry conversations with virtual strangers with ease, as compared to how relatively shy he acted at school. By now, his feet were aching from standing up for the better part of an hour, and part of him regretted not wearing his pair of worn out sneakers instead of his dress shoes. Though, on second thought, he supposed that Zitao likely wouldn’t be too happy to see his carefully assembled outfit destroyed by Kyungsoo’s dirty Converse, aka Huchu’s favorite chew toy.

He spotted an open table halfway across the room, and internally debated on whether or not to interrupt Jongin’s conversation to let him know of his departure. Ultimately, he decided on texting Jongin of his whereabouts, and Jongin scarcely noticed when Kyungsoo slipped away into the crowd.

Tired and bored, Kyungsoo melted into his seat, a cocktail shrimp in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He had just texted Jongin and was considering messaging Junmyeon, too, when a man slid into the seat beside him.

“Kyungsoo?” He asked. The man was tall, dressed in a detailed black and gold suit, numerous golden studs glinting from his ears. His eyes were intriguingly catlike, with a hidden warmth behind them that had Kyungsoo hesitantly nodding in return. “I’m Zitao.”

“I talked to Sooyoung earlier. Thank you so much for the suit, I really appreciate it.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Zitao said, raking his eyes down Kyungsoo’s figure. “It looks amazing on you, I didn’t think that Junmyeon would get the measurements right.”

“I owe it all to you two,” Kyungsoo grinned.

“Your makeup really ties it all together though,” Zitao complimented, leaning closer to examine Kyungsoo’s face. “The glitter is a really nice touch, brings out the silver in your tie and complements the hints of ivory cream in your dress shirt.”

“I’m not even going to pretend that I understood that,” Kyungsoo deadpanned, “but I’ll pass your compliments on to my best friend.”

“Ah, have him contact me sometime? I could use another makeup artist.”

Kyungsoo tucked Zitao’s business card in his pocket, the thick glossy cardstock decorated with “AB Couture” in gold cursive print, already excited to pass it on to Baekhyun.

“Now,” Zitao mumbled around a mouthful of croutons, “do you have any embarrassing stories to tell me about Yifan or Junmyeon? Yifan  _ and  _ Junmyeon, preferably, if you know what I mean.”

He waggled his eyebrows up and down suggestively, and Kyungsoo let out a gasp of choked laughter. He parted his lips, debating on telling Zitao about the easter-bunny-Yifan incident, or maybe regaling him with the difficulties of getting Junmyeon to even  _ admit _ to their relationship being anything more than student council co-presidents.

And then there was the familiar hand on his shoulder again, but this time more insistent than comforting. “Kyungsoo,” Jongin said, his gaze hardened, “where did you go?”

“I texted you.”

“Hi Jongin,” Zitao piped in, and Jongin simply ignored him, dragging Kyungsoo out of his seat. 

“You can’t just disappear on me like that,” Jongin grumbled. “My parents want to meet you, so come.”

Kyungsoo felt a little like a scolded puppy as he trailed after Jongin, still not quite understanding what had gone wrong.

Jongin reached out to steady Kyungsoo with a hand, and he stood facing an older couple who screamed elegance and status and money. So these are Jongin’s parents, Kyungsoo thought, and he could see where Jongin’s strong jaw and height had come from.

“This is Do Kyungsoo, my classmate,” Jongin introduced, and Kyungsoo quickly fell into a bow before straightening up and flashing his best smile. These were Jongin’s parents, after all.  _ Potential future parents-in-law?  _ A tiny voice inside of his head whispered, which Kyungsoo chose to ignore.

“So Kyungsoo, what do your parents do?”

“My father is an accountant and my mother owns a café, sir,” Kyungsoo said, working to be as pleasant and polite as possible.

“Ah, my wife runs a café, too. With two hundred locations all over the country, that is.” Jongin’s father laughed at his own joke, and Kyungsoo plastered on a tiny smile.

“You’re about to graduate like Jongin, aren’t you? Where are you planning on going to university next year?”

“I haven’t decided yet, sir, but I’ll likely be going to university in the US to study computer science.”

Kyungsoo startled when Jongin’s dad slapped his son’s back, the loud smack seeming to reverberate in the room. “I’m sure you know, but Jongin here’s going to Harvard next year!” He gleefully announced, and  _ what _ . No, he hadn’t known. He looked accusingly towards Jongin, who guiltily avoided eye contact. 

“You must be very proud of him, sir. Congratulations.”

“Did you apply to Harvard, too?”

“I did, sir,” Kyungsoo said lightly. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t offered admission there.”

Jongin’s father clucked his tongue, regarding Kyungsoo with pity. “They only take the top five percent of students worldwide, so clearly not everyone can make it to the best university in the world. You need to be ranked top five at your high school at least, not to mention internships and other activities.”

Best university according to who? And maybe your son ranked fifth place, but guess who ranked first and still didn’t get admitted to your precious university? Kyungsoo wanted to fire back, but he instead schooled his face into what he hoped was a pleasant expression.

“Don’t be upset,” Mr. Kim placated, “even though Harvard’s education and opportunities are world class, a diploma is a diploma, though prestige is a  _ huge _ benefit when searching for a job. Though I’m sure Jongin would be willing to bring you on a tour of Harvard’s campus sometime, so you won’t have to queue in line with the tourists. Right, Jongin?”

Kyungsoo challengingly met Jongin’s eyes, as if daring him to agree with his father’s conclusion that he was some sort of charity case, that he was somehow inferior for being a part of the 95% of applicants who had received a Harvard rejection letter. 

“I’d be happy to,” Jongin stuttered out, breaking eye contact, and with it, the part of Kyungsoo’s heart that had become his.

“It was great to meet you both,” Kyungsoo heard himself saying, sinking into a bow before beelining towards the restroom. “I have some business to take care of, but I hope to see you again soon.” And even though he knew that Jongin wasn’t  _ Jongin _ here— he was businessman Jongin, daddy’s boy Jongin,  _ Harvard student _ Jongin, who had an image to uphold that was far more important than their seemingly insignificant relationship— it was hard to swallow the fact that he and his feelings seemed to sit at the bottom of his list of priorities. Kyungsoo was no more important than a classmate to him, and he knew that it had been foolish to fall so fast so quickly. The difference now was that he was forced to face the reality that Jongin wouldn’t be there to catch him.

He reached into his pocket for his phone, and didn’t hesitate before locating a contact and tapping “call.”

“Kyungsoo?” He could hear the string quartet cheerily playing on in the background, the upbeat cadence not at all matching the somber mood of Kyungsoo’s obnoxiously spacious bathroom stall. Hell, the bathroom speakers even played their own merry tune, and Kyungsoo wanted nothing more than to drown it all out.

“Junmyeon, sorry, are you busy?”

“No, no,” he said, but Kyungsoo could hear the hubbub of dialogue growing more distant as Junmyeon’s Italian dress shoes carried him away from the crux of conversation. “Where are you?”

Kyungsoo bit his lip. “First floor bathroom, second stall.”

He heard Junmyeon mumble something and Yifan’s hushed reply echo through the line, before the bathroom door was bursting open.

At his first glance at Kyungsoo huddled on the closed toilet seat, Junmyeon’s worried frown only grew deeper. “It was Jongin, wasn’t it?”

Kyungsoo’s dismal expression was all the answer he needed. Junmyeon wrapped an arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulders, and Kyungsoo leaned into his warmth. “I’m sorry, I know you have places to be that aren’t a bathroom stall.”

“Friends always come first,” Junmyeon said quietly. “Yifan can exercise his small talk skills in my place.”

Kyungsoo let out a dry laugh that felt as if it was forcefully ripped out of his chest. “I think that Jongin chose small talk over me.”

Junmyeon’s hold tightened at that. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later,” Kyungsoo said, apologetic, and Junmyeon only shook his head in understanding. “Honestly, I just want to get out of here.”

Junmyeon peeked at his Rolex watch hidden under the sleeve of his white suit jacket. “Actually, Yifan and I were about to leave for formal, and you’re welcome to come along if you’d like to.”

The two boys wordlessly traced their steps back to the hotel lobby, Yifan tagging along somewhere along the way with an awkwardly commiserating smile. As they weaved their way back through the crowd, Kyungsoo found himself unconsciously keeping an eye out for Jongin’s perfectly tousled hair and navy blue suit, before quickly reprimanding himself that Jongin was probably occupied anyways. With a different businessman, maybe a businessman’s son, someone whose parents owned a large conglomerate. Maybe he wouldn’t notice that Kyungsoo had left at all.

Unexpectedly, that assumption was dispelled when an anxious looking Jongin came into view, bathed in the glittering yellow glow of the hotel lobby and tugging at the sleeves of his dress shirt as he paced around the fountain in the center of the room. His eyes lit up when he recognized Kyungsoo heading towards him, but Kyungsoo was overwhelmed by a feeling of unease when he couldn’t quite decipher the conflicting emotions storming within them.

Junmyeon and Yifan exchanged a glance. “We’ll go get the car,” Junmyeon offered, squeezing Kyungsoo’s shoulder in silent support, and then the echo of the pair’s expensive footwear against the polished marble tile faded into the distance. 

Kyungsoo willed himself to meet Jongin’s eyes, and the taller boy wordlessly reached forward to circle Kyungsoo’s wrist, tugging him towards an abandoned conference room and shutting the door behind them. Usually Kyungsoo would object to being treated like a rag doll, but in this case, he knew that they needed to talk— preferably not somewhere they could be interrupted or eavesdropped on.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Jongin turned to face Kyungsoo, his lips pressed into a line and the grip on his wrist only tightening. “Where are you going? Are you disappearing on me  _ again _ ?”

Kyungsoo felt his defenses rise at the accusation. “To formal,” he said simply, yanking free of Jongin’s hold.

Jongin’s eyes darkened. “With Junmyeon? The last time I checked, you were  _ my  _ formal date.”

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo scoffed, “with Junmyeon and  _ his date _ , Yifan. And why does it matter? The last time I checked, I was just your classmate.”

The wild look in Jongin’s eyes softened, and his tone was markedly gentler when he said, “I was just trying to protect you, Kyungsoo.”

“From who? The only person that I needed to be protected from was your own father, and I can’t recall you doing anything about that situation.”

“I mean from strangers who might try to talk to you,” Jongin amended.

“Are you talking about Zitao?” Kyungsoo asked, incredulous. “Is that what this is about?”

“What was I supposed to think? You left me with those annoyingly flirtatious girls and I found you with someone else.”

“I came here with  _ you _ , Jongin. Not with Zitao or Junmyeon. I thought it was clear that like you, and I wish you’d have more faith in me.”

Jongin grew silent at that, and this time when he reached out for Kyungsoo’s hand, Kyungsoo let him press their palms together. The taller boy looked up from where their fingers were laced with each other, drawing in deep, calming breaths before speaking.

“I’m sorry about my parents,” he finally said, “and… for not telling you about university. I just, when you told me that you didn’t get in I thought that it was so unfair that you worked so hard only for a legacy kid like me to get in in the end. Both my parents went there, and with the lawsuit going on, I know that I didn’t get in just based on my test grades. A part of me thought that it should have been Junmyeon or you instead. I really care about you, Kyungsoo, I didn’t want to make you feel bad about yourself over something out of your control.”

“You can say the word Harvard, Jongin,” Kyungsoo said, amusement creeping back into his voice. “You’re not going to hurt me. And congratulations on getting in. I mean it. Don’t think so lowly of yourself, okay? Plus,” he continued, more hesitantly, “it would be hypocritical of me to judge you for not telling me when I haven’t exactly been the most transparent about my college plans myself.”

Jongin only squeezed Kyungsoo’s hand, his warm brown eyes turned up at him expectantly.

“I got in to MIT.”

“What,” Jongin breathed, surprise and delight written all over his face. “Oh my god, that’s one of the best engineering schools in the world! Why didn’t you just tell my parents that? They would have been all over you!” He took in Kyungsoo’s rapidly souring expression and felt his own face twist in confusion and hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Kyungsoo regarded him with one long, contemplative look, filled with mingling disappointment and uncertainty, before the windows to his heart shuttered resolutely closed with a clang that rang out inside his head.

“This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. Do I need to go to a prestigious university to be worthy of standing by your side? Would you pity me or think less of me if I didn’t happen to win the college admissions lottery?”

“I, no,” Jongin said clumsily, stumbling over his words in his haste to relay his thoughts. “It’s not me, just, my parents…”

“It’s your world,” Kyungsoo said plainly, clenching his fists as he felt his whole body go numb. “Was I wrong for deluding myself to think that I could belong in it, for thinking that this high school relationship would last?” Jongin’s lips parted, but before he could formulate a response, Kyungsoo pushed on. “We’re graduating soon. Two weeks from now we can say our goodbyes and part ways for the rest of our lives. Maybe I’ll see you again at our ten year reunion, when you have a Gucci model spouse who you met at Harvard hanging off of your arm and live in a penthouse in Gangnam across the street from your parent’s house. You’ll work nine-to-five as the CEO of a branch of your father’s company and come home to your two-point-five kids, and,” he bit out, “you’ll have forgotten about me altogether. Is it better for us to just end this now?”

Jongin’s eyes were wide, and he frantically reached out to pull Kyungsoo flush against his chest. “No, no, Kyungsoo,” he mumbled, “ten years on, I still want to be with you.”

Kyungsoo pressed his hands against Jongin’s chest, fighting the lulling comfort of their close proximity, the urge to curl against Jongin and let his worries dissipate in his embrace. Instead, he steeled his resolve, and let his questions pour out endlessly like a jammed faucet. “Would you still want to be with me if I fail out of college? If I go to events like this dressed in a sport jacket I bargained for at a flea market? If I work at this very hotel to pay off my student loans and your business partners all know that your boyfriend is a minimum wage worker?”

“You won’t,” came Jongin’s answer, and Kyungsoo pushed him away without respite. He rushed away from Jongin, ignoring the increasingly distraught calls of his name and squashing down the hurt that burned in his chest, accompanied by searing regret at the sight of Jongin’s eyes welling with unshed tears.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Kyungsoo whispered, and the silence following the click of the door shutting behind him had never felt so empty.

He let himself lean into Junmyeon’s touch when the other found him listlessly pacing in front of the hotel, and the other boy carefully buckled Kyungsoo into the backseat of the same old silver Honda Civic he had previously seen in the school parking lot before sliding into the passenger seat himself. The seat beside Kyungsoo was occupied by three basketballs, a towering stack of textbooks, and a countless number of old takeout containers. When Kyungsoo looked up questioningly, he met Yifan’s gaze through the rearview mirror.

“Sorry about the car, my parents made me pay for it myself and this was all I could afford,” he said, smiling.

“I like it,” Kyungsoo said, sinking deeper into the grey upholstery. And he meant it. He would rather be here, his exposed ankle touching what looked to be a greasy discarded McDonald’s take out bag, than in Jongin’s familiar luxurious Roadster.

The ride was, rather ironically, calming, Yifan taking care to switch from his “sad jamz” playlist to “bopz” in accordance to Kyungsoo’s mood. This meant that Kyungsoo’s ears were graced with twenty minutes of Yifan and Junmyeon scream-singing the lyrics to various Red Velvet songs, their voices breaking into terrible falsetto all too often. The fifth time that they launched into chanting “LOOKIE LOOKIE MY SUPER LOOKIE LOOKIE,” and when Yifan attempted to hit Wendy’s high note in Happiness (“replay that part Junmyeon, I promise I can hit the note this time—”) Kyungsoo cracked a real smile. He loved his friends, he thought, not so much for their singing skills, but for their ability of somehow always being able to cheer him up, even during the worst of times.

When Yifan crookedly parked his car in a lot a few blocks away from the school dance venue, Kyungsoo had made up his mind to try to enjoy the rest of the night. While sticking to his personal principles, of course, as always— no drinking, no drugs, no meaningless intimacy. He remembered the plotlines of Baekhyun and Sehun’s favorite dramas and how the main characters seemed to always fall apart after getting into an argument, getting plastered and acting completely irrationally, only to stupidly fall back into their ex-lover’s arms. Kyungsoo was determined not to let that happen to himself, not without reconciling their differences.

The dance was just getting started when they arrived, and Junmyeon and Yifan skipped off to make last minute adjustments to the decor. Kyungsoo was left awkwardly standing on his tiptoes in an attempt to spot his friends in the long line of students snaking around the building, waiting to be let in the venue.

“Kyungsoo!” Luhan called out obnoxiously loudly, and Kyungsoo saw him dressed in a pinstripe suit standing next to Sehun, Baekhyun, and Chanyeol near the entrance of the building. Kyungsoo made his way over to his group of friends, but he wasn’t given a chance to contemplate the ethics of cutting the line before he was being pulled into a messy embrace.

“Junmyeon told us what happened,” Sehun muttered, his chin hooked over Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “Wait until I get my hands on Kim Jongin.”

“His ass is flat anyways,” Chanyeol helpfully supplied, yelping when Baekhyun pinched his side.

When they finally arrived at the front of the line, Minseok, the student council treasurer, checked his list off of the list of attending students, flashing him a small smile from behind the counter.

“Nice flower,” Baekhyun commented, motioning towards the pretty rose tucked inside of his suit’s breast pocket. In doing so, he leaned a little too closely towards poor Minseok, who held his ground with a polite  _ thank you _ . “So tell me, did Jo-”

“Don’t pry,” Sehun lightly scolded, slapping a hand over Baekhyun’s mouth, but Kyungsoo knew that he probably only said that because he already knew all that there was to know. The noodle boy and social media were truly quite the power couple. Baekhyun licked Sehun’s palm in retaliation, and Minseok only looked a little disgruntled when he waved the group past the blue velvet stanchion.

The venue was dressed up for the theme of winter wonderland, and the room was bathed in blue light, fairy lights twinkling from where they were strung up on the walls and snowflake confetti scattered over ivory linen tablecloths. There was even a giant blow up snowman in the corner, which his friends had immediately been attracted towards, Chanyeol getting into a boxing match with the innocent creature. Jumyeon really had outdone himself.

Of course, there was the music, some nondescript pop song whose sheer volume had already begun to assault his ear drums, and a pitcher full of some shady looking beverage that Kyungsoo would do anything to keep far away from his mouth.

He had never been one for dancing, and parked himself at a table while his friends went off to the dance floor, content to nibble on a wholesale chocolate chip cookie while trying not to let himself think too hard about Jongin, Jongin, Jongin.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor caused Kyungsoo to look up, grinning at Yixing, who was dressed smartly in a classic tuxedo, a few of the buttons on his dress shirt accidentally mismatched and exposing flashes of the skin on his chest. 

“Hey Kyungsoo! Looking good as always,” Yixing greeted cheerfully, munching on a handful of cheese crackers he held in his cupped palm.

“Thanks, Yixing. Did… you want some help with your shirt?”

“What?” He mumbled through a stolen mouthful of Kyungsoo’s cookie, looking down at his chest. “Oh. Thanks for telling me, I got ready in a rush because I lost track of time in the studio,” he said sheepishly.

“What are you doing here, though? I would’ve thought that you’d be on the dance floor.”

Yixing looked up from his now mercifully matched shirt buttons, puffing his cheeks out. “Can’t do that without my dance partner. Where’s your boyfriend? I thought that he’d be clinging to you like a cute little guard puppy.”

“Oh, uh,” Kyungsoo fumbled, ducking his head. “We… I don’t know.” Yixing ceased his chewing then, looking equal parts concerned and upset.

“He really likes you, you know?”

“I know,” he sighed. And he did. He never doubted Jongin’s sincerity, but— “I just don’t know if it’s enough.”

The rest of the night flew by in flashes of neon strobe lights and the constant shutter of the photobooth, acquaintances coming up to compliment his outfit to which he could only respond with a quirk of his lips. At one point when one of Chen’s more upbeat songs played, Jongdae convinced him to join him in a duet, but Kyungsoo quickly retreated back to his seat when Minseok took his place by Jongdae’s side. Baekhyun pulled Kyungsoo out of his misery bubble to join a few (read:  _ at least _ a hundred) group pictures because “this photo is going on my Instagram, at least  _ try  _ not to look like sweaty zombies.” The entire time, a part of Kyungsoo was still hoping for Jongin to appear, but the other boy had either decided not to come at all or was doing a very good job at avoiding him. Kyungsoo didn’t know which conclusion was worse.

Before he knew it, a slow ballad was playing through the speakers, and Kyungsoo averted his gaze from the dance floor because a) he did not want to see his friends feeling each other up and b) maybe he wanted that for himself, too. He remembered the conversation that he had once had with Jongin about drowning himself in the bowl of spiked fruit punch during the slow dance, and smiled a little despite himself— the tiny, sad kind of smile of reminiscence. Who knew that the night of formal would have him end up here, a half eaten chocolate chip cookie in his hand, his relationship teetering in the balance? No matter his sadness, Kyungsoo knew that alcohol poisoning was not the answer, and opted to chug the remnants of his cup of soda instead.

Then Junmyeon was standing on the tiny makeshift stage, announcing the imminent end of the event (and the beginning of the arduous process of cleaning up gallons of spilled jungle juice). His friends had returned from the dance floor and had collapsed into a sweaty pile of dumb on the table next to his, and Kyungsoo decided to try to make himself useful in helping to clear up the mess that was left behind.

“What time is it?”

“11:30,” Luhan grunted out, inadvertently sending Junmyeon into a tizzy because ‘oh my god we have thirty minutes to clean up before the venue owner kills me HELP.”

“The subway closes at midnight, think we can make it by then?”

“I don’t think that I can even get up right now.”

Yifan stopped by their area with a giant black garbage bag in tow, wrinkling his nose when he gingerly picked an empty bag of chips up off of the table. “I’ll give you a ride,” he said, “if you guys get off your asses and help clean up. I think Jongdae has some space in his car too if you wanna go ask him.”

“Thanks Yifan!” Luhan chirped, suddenly revitalized as he began to tap away on his phone. Chanyeol wholeheartedly began to conduct an experiment on “how many dirty cups can I carry at once,” and maxed out at 23 before Baekhyun reminded him that soda stains would probably be ingrained forever in the fabric of his white suit.

Baekhyun and Sehun piled into the back of Yifan’s Honda, headed towards Kyungsoo’s house where the three had planned to have a sleepover. This time the addition of Baekhyun and Sehun’s voices only fueled Yifan and Junmyeon’s fervor in out-singing each other, and Kyungsoo unexpectedly found himself singing along, letting the stress release from his body as the notes floated from his parted lips. After bidding goodbye to the co-presidents, Kyungsoo tiptoed through his sleepy house, collapsing onto the layers of fluffy bedding arranged as a makeshift mattress on the floor of his bedroom.

One episode of Running Man later, Sehun was passed out, and Baekhyun’s ceaseless commentary on Kim Jongkook’s “chonky please choke me” physique had finally ended. Kyungsoo had shut the lid of his laptop and was nestling into his pillow when Baekhyun suddenly whispered, “Kyungsoo?”

Kyungsoo rolled over to face the other boy. “I thought you were sleeping, but I didn’t hear you whimper like usual so I should have known you were still up.”

“Do you want to talk about it now?”

The room was entirely still, save for the quiet rustle of the comforter as Kyungsoo tugged it up to his chin. “I don’t really want to break up with him,” he eventually said.

“Then there’s still a chance of you guys getting back together?”

“Not if nothing changes,” Kyungsoo sighed out.

“You know, some people say that people never change, but I think they do. All the time. Like how Chanyeol’s less of a creep now and how you went to a school dance for the first time. You just have to try to make sure that the change is for the better.”

“I think you’re the wisest out of the three of us,” Kyungsoo teased, pressing closer to Baekhyun’s side. Then, more solemnly, “I just don’t want him to become serious businessman Jongin, because will he still care about me then?”

“Give him a chance,” Baekhyun mumbled, and then his eyelids were fluttering closed. 

_ I hope that some things will always stay the same,  _ was Kyungsoo’s last thought, finally giving in to the rolling waves of sleep that offered solace after such a long, turbulent day.

❅❆❅

The first thing that Kyungsoo became aware of the following Monday morning was the annoyingly insistent knocking on his bedroom door. He reluctantly cracked one eye open, peeking at the light that filtered in through his shuttered blinds. A glance at his alarm clock told him that it was barely six in the morning, almost an hour before he usually woke up for school, and Kyungsoo did  _ not  _ function well under the effects of sleep deprivation. Whoever was behind that door was probably going to regret it, but Kyungsoo was confused as to who it could be. Sehun? Baekhyun? His mom usually left earlier in the morning to open up the café, and his dad was abroad on a business trip.

Blindly groping at his nightstand, he sleepily rubbed at his eyes before putting his glasses on. Without even glancing at himself in the mirror— more to spare himself the sight of his unsightly bedhead than anything— he pulled his bedroom door open, reproval on the tip of his tongue.

“Hi, Kyungsoo.”

It was Jongin, all nervous and soft in his school uniform and the little bear hat that Kyungsoo liked so much, his messy hair such a contrast from the perfect updo it had been put in at the last time they had seen each other. Kyungsoo rubbed at his eyes again, unconvinced that it wasn’t his bleariness that was making him see things. Nope, Jongin was still there, looking more and more anxious with each passing second. With a start, he suddenly realized that he was dressed in an old too-tight t-shirt from a camp a few summers ago, and a pair of ratty blue pororo print pants. Wonderful.

“How, what?”

“Your mom let me in,” Jongin said, toying with the buttons of his blazer. “Sorry if I woke you up, it’s just, I spent the last couple days thinking about what I wanted to say to you and I didn’t want to make you wait any longer.” He chanced a glance at Kyungsoo, gauging his reaction, and upon registering nothing but surprise and lingering traces of sleep, let out a breath of relief and continued.

“I told my parents about us,” he blurted out, and Kyungsoo’s eyes rounded in shock. “That you’re not my classmate, you’re my very smart very handsome very cute and hard working boyfriend who always helps me with my math assignments and puts up with my whining. But not that you’re going to MIT— I thought that you could tell them that yourself, if you want to, that is.”

“They were... okay with it?”

Jongin shook his head, his bangs flopping into his eyes. “Even if they weren’t okay with it, that wouldn’t change the fact that I want to be with you. You can wear a garbage bag to our next company gala and work as one of those people who shoves advertisements at you at the subway exits and I think that I’ll only fall more in love with you every day.” He suddenly panicked, seeming to realizing what he had just said. “Wait, I didn’t mean it, well I did, but—”

Kyungsoo couldn’t help but laugh, letting himself lean into Jongin’s warmth. Jongin’s arm tentatively wrapped around his waist, pressing their two chests together.

“Do you still think it’s stupid? Falling in love with your first high school boyfriend? Thinking that you could be together for the next… forever?” Jongin met Kyungsoo’s gaze, his hands betraying his nervousness as he tightly gripped the fabric of Kyungsoo’s tie-dyed shirt.

Kyungsoo brought his hands up to cup Jongin’s cheeks, pulling him down so they were face to face. Jongin’s eyes spoke of his conflicting fear and hopefulness, and Kyungsoo felt his mouth tug into the heart shaped smile that Jongin loved so much. “It’s not stupid, not if I’m spending my forever with you,” he whispered, standing up on his tip toes to press a fleeting kiss to Jongin’s cheek.

“What, that’s all I get?” Jongin pouted, his cheeks pink, and Kyungsoo wanted nothing more than to kiss him properly. But still—

“Let me brush my teeth first, you big baby,” he retorted, grinning when Jongin wrapped his arms around his waist and hooked his chin over his shoulder, practically dragged along on Kyungsoo’s valiant quest to the bathroom.

He looked at himself in the mirror, his mouth full of frothy toothpaste, his hair a fluffy mess, and a sleepy Kim Jongin leaning against his side, laughing as Meokmul begged for his attention.

Maybe they didn’t make a picture perfect painting, and the chaotic mess of his I-just-woke-up state would probably trigger an allergic reaction from Junmyeon’s “aesthetic” instagram account. But during this point in his life, characterized by perpetual changes and the ever-lingering feeling of uncertainty, he hoped that Jongin would remain a constant. Someone whose embrace he could return to after a long day, and whose smile could revitalize him like a sip of hot chocolate on a cold morning.

Because when Jongin leaned down to press a kiss to his temple, Kyungsoo thought that he could definitely get used to this.

❅❆❅

“Congratulations!” Junmyeon screamed into the microphone, his cry drowned out by the collective cheers of the new graduates as they tossed their caps into the air. Kyungsoo watched his cap’s trajectory trace a graceful arc through the blue sky, landing somewhere amongst the crowd standing together— for perhaps that last time in a long while— on the green lawn. He turned his attention towards his family, his mother looking up at him with a tearful grin.

Beside him, Luhan’s eyes looked glassy, too. “I can’t believe that we graduated,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think that I would miss high school so much, but we literally graduated a minute ago and I’m already sad.”

“I’ll miss you all, but we’ll see each other again,” Yifan assured.

Luhan snorted, giving Yifan a pointed look. “Says the person who’s going halfway across the world. You chose to go to UBC over being with us?”

“A little distance isn’t going to destroy any of our relationships. And—” a dopey grin appeared on his face— “it’s only 8,168.63 kilometers between Junmyeon and I.”

“Did you actually calculate the exact distance between SNU and UBC?”

“Well, I won’t know the exact distance until we’re assigned to our dorms.”

“He already planned out six months worth of care packages to send to Junmyeon every week,” Kyungsoo smirked, watching as Yifan struggled to maintain his cool. “It’s okay Yifan, we all know that you’re whipped.”

Junmyeon stepped down from the stage and joined them then, along with Baekhyun, Sehun, Yixing, and Chanyeol, their parents trailing closely behind. No doubt that Kyungsoo’s parents were regaling others with all sorts of his embarrassing stories, but he couldn’t find it within him to care about that now. Jongin threw an arm over Kyungsoo’s shoulder, pulling him into his side.

“Great speech, Junmyeon,” Sehun complimented, the rest of the group humming in agreement. “You really didn’t have to stay up the entire night memorizing it though.”

“Sacrifices must be made to achieve great successes,” Luhan said dramatically, earning a reproachful jab from Kyungsoo.

“Oh my god, Luhan is going to be ten times more annoying when he inevitably gets a British accent. Cambridge is going to change you.” 

“At least some of us will still be here in Korea. Junmyeon’s going to be at Seoul National, I’ll be at Yonsei, Jongdae’s going to Hanyang, and Minseok’s going to Korea,” Baekhyun commented.

Chanyeol cocked his head in confusion. “I thought Jongdae was going to Ewha?”   
  


“Ewha is a woman’s university,” Kyungsoo laughed, Chanyeol’s giant elf ears pinking as he craned to duck his head in Baekhyun’s neck. “You should know better than to fall victim to his trollish ways.”

“And then there are these traitors.” Baekhyun motioned towards Kyungsoo, Jongin, Chanyeol, and Sehun, who shared a look of amusement, “heading off to the far away land of McDonald’s.”

“I like McDonald’s,” Yixing said offhandedly, to which Jongin and Chanyeol furiously nodded in consensus. “Especially Oreo McFlurries.”

“I don’t know if they’ll have Oreo McFlurries at Tsinghua,” Jongin said sadly, patting Yixing’s shoulder consolingly.

“You guys better introduce me to all of the cute future billionaires at Harvard and MIT,” Sehun lilted towards Jongin and Kyungsoo. “Boston University is a few minutes drive away, so I wouldn’t mind sitting in on a lecture or two.” Luhan scowled at that, pinching Sehun’s cheek until the noodley boy let out a pained yelp.

Chanyeol’s eyes grew almost frighteningly wide. “At least you three have each other. What am I going to do on the other side of the country myself?”

“You’ll find a way,” Kyungsoo said softly. “The Chanyeol I know doesn’t give up so easily, and the Chanyeol at Berkeley should be no different.” The two shared a smile, Chanyeol trying (and failing) not to sweat under the burn of Jongin’s ever vigilant stare.

“Kyungsoo’s mom says that we can all head over to her café,” Baekhyun piped in, jumping excitedly in his place. “Want to go to the arcade downtown and get some snacks there after? There’s also a terrible action movie showing in the theatre right now, if you guys want to watch that, too.”

Jongin laced his fingers with Kyungsoo’s, smiling down at him with the brightness of a hundred twinkling stars. “I heard that the matcha cr ê pe cake there is amazing,” he said quietly, as if his words were a poem meant for Kyungsoo alone.

“I’ll invite Jongdae and Minseok too,” Luhan said, skipping off into the distance. The rest of the group picked their graduation caps off of the ground, dusting them off and informing their parents of their plans, exchanging contact information with acquaintances and saying goodbyes. Kyungsoo picked his cap up from where it had landed in a fragrant lavender bush, grinning at the simple “Thank You :)” embossed on it in bold letters. At least it was much easier to understand than Sehun’s “mlyjyj_bckjs” on Sehun’s cap, which he defended as an amalgamation of all of their names into an acronym. Cheesy, but Kyungsoo found it fitting, because his friends were what made his high school experience so worthwhile— and what made it so hard to leave this chapter of his life behind. 

As he linked his arms with Baekhyun and Sehun’s, joining the boisterous group of boys starting on the short walk downtown, he caught Jongin sending him a fleeting, flying kiss, before he turned back to his conversation with Yixing. And maybe high school had ended, but the start of the rest of his life had just begun, and Kyungsoo knew that the friends he had made here would follow him throughout the years— even once his familiar blue school uniform blazer began to collect dust and the sound of the school bell became something of a fond, distant memory.

And then there was sweet, brilliant, Jongin, the millionaire heartthrob with the softest smile and the kindest heart, with the expensive car that didn’t have cup holders and a killer pout that never failed to make Kyungsoo feel as if he was falling all over again. Sure, he wasn’t perfect, but Jongin had turned out to be so, so much more, and Kyungsoo was excited for what was to come— for what they would face together.

Kyungsoo turned around to cast one last glance at his high school, where he had spent the last years laughing, studying, crying, and growing into the person that he was today. The school bell rang once, as if to say goodbye, hello, and see you soon.

And then he stepped forward, surrounded by the support of his closest friends, a love song singing from the depths of his heart.

Sehun suddenly paused mid step, casting the group a conspiratory glance. “Petition for Jongin to pay for our arcade tickets?”

“Not if I get there first,” Jongin laughed, and then they were off, graduation gowns fluttering in the wind, matching smiles on their faces speaking of everlasting, enduring friendship and delight.


	4. Epilogue

Kyungsoo was just stowing the last of his packing cubes into his luggage when he heard a series of knocks on the door of his dorm room.   
  


“Coming!” His roommate, Kwangsoo, hollered, springing up from his bed and unlatching the door in record time. On the other side of it stood Jongin, bundled in a thick winter jacket, an MIT sweatshirt showing beneath it and his signature bear hat perched on his head. He left his suitcase out in the hallway, curtly nodding at Kwangsoo before latching himself onto Kyungsoo’s side, his long arms snaking around Kyungsoo’s waist and pulling him away from where he was organizing his toiletry bag.

“Missed you too,” Kyungsoo murmured, turning his head to press a kiss onto Jongin’s full lips. “Ready to go?”

Jongin nodded against Kyungsoo’s fluffy sweater, grinning when he caught sight of the adorable bear stitched on front. “You wore it,” he said happily. Kyungsoo merely shrugged, a smile on his face, mumbling something along the lines of “it’s yours, of course I’d wear it.”

Kyungsoo removed himself from Jongin’s clutches to make one last pass of his part of the dorm room, ensuring that his belongings were all put away, and tucking a mechanical pencil into his carry-on bag out of habit. He was sure that Baekhyun would be proud if he could see him now.

His boyfriend helped him into his long padded jacket, wrapped his penguin scarf around his neck, and pulled the new penguin beanie that Junmyeon had sent him in the mail onto his head. Kyungsoo was pretty sure that he looked like a terrifying penguin caterpillar creature, but his distaste was staunched by Jongin regarding him with his ever loving gaze.

“My caterpillar Soo,” Jongin said, with his stupidly adorable seal laughter, causing Kyungsoo to playfully jab his side.

Kyungsoo rolled his luggage out into the hallway, hugging Kwangsoo goodbye— the lanky, rather giraffe-like boy was heading home for winter break, too, but was departing sometime later in the day. The poor boy looked nervous when Jongin pulled him in for a terse handshake, nodding towards him appreciatively before following Kyungsoo towards the elevators.

“I still don’t know why you had to intimidate Kwangsoo so much when you first met,” Kyungsoo said, his voice overlapping with the mechanical whir of the elevator. “He’s really nice, kind of reminds me of Chanyeol sometimes.”

Jongin’s free hand found Kyungsoo’s, and he turned to attack Kyungsoo with a killer pout. “You know that I had to do it, Soo! He had to know that you were off limits. And I’m trying to be nicer now.”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at that, shivering when they stepped out of the lobby into the cold. Snowflakes drifted across the campus, and Kyungsoo immediately pulled his hood up, nuzzling into it to find respite from the biting chill.

“Sehun said he already got in an Uber and that he’ll be here in a few minutes,” Jongin said, looking at his phone. “Our flight’s departing in three hours, so we probably won’t have time to get food before getting on the plane.”

“The  _ bibimbap  _ on Korean Air is the best anyways,” Kyungsoo shrugged, leaning against Jongin’s side. “And I thought that we agreed to save our stomach space for all the Korean food that we’ve been deprived of.”

“Hey, sappy power couple!”

Sehun stepped out of an Uber, cheeks flushed as he enveloped Kyungsoo and Jongin in giant bear hugs despite the fact that they had just seen each other the previous day for the end of semester Holiday party. The ride to the airport was boisterous as usual, and Kyungsoo contentedly let himself bask in the warm air blasting from the car’s air vents and the comfortable lull of Jongin and Sehun bickering over which of their pet dogs had missed them more.

The first semester of college hadn’t been easy, especially starting up anew in a new country— his English had always been good, but his first professor for intro to computer science spoke so quickly that he had had to improve his proficiency, stat. With lots and lots of hard work, Kyungsoo had managed to come out of the semester at the top of his class, and he was particularly proud that he hadn’t given in to the vice of toxic bean juice to do so.

But despite how much he enjoyed the whirlwind that was university life, watching Jongin perform at dance showcases and making new friends at his university’s cooking club, he was eager to return home, to his family and friends and the familiarity that he had left behind.

When he was settled into his window seat on the airplane, watching the twinkle of runway lights against the smooth tarmac below, he let his head loll onto Jongin’s broad shoulder. Jongin looked down at him, his warm brown eyes seeming to glitter in the dim cabin, and Kyungsoo found that he couldn’t quite bring himself to look away.

“Love you,” Kyungsoo said quietly, and Jongin’s face blossomed into a delighted smile, as if the words that had just fallen from his lips were what he had been searching for all along.

“Love you, too.”

  
  
  


Group chat “koolest kids XD”: 💪YIFAN, 😌Yixing🐑, uwu Chanyeol💩, Jongin 🧸🐶💞, Kim Junmyeon🐰, 😎MANhan⚽, HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇, 💕vivi’s dad💕, Kyungsoo🐧

**Jongin 🧸🐶** 💞

we’re boarding now! excited 2 c u guys soon!!

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

yESSS CHILDREN COME BACK TO THE MOTHERLAND

**😌Yixing🐑**

I’m flying back tonight too, should be back in Korea tomorrow!

**💪YIFAN**

I’m on the plane rn there’s wifi hehe

**😎MANhan⚽**

wtf did you pay for it??

I paid for wifi just to watch the manchester united game live and it was sO EXPENSIVE

**Kim Junmyeon🐰**

I don’t know that was the smartest choice economically

But everyone is still free to meet on the 23rd right?

**uwu Chanyeol💩**

yaaaas ski trip!!!

**💪YIFAN**

Please never say that again

**Kyungsoo🐧**

We’re taking off soon! The McDonald’s squad desperately needs Korean food

**😎MANhan⚽**

If I have to eat fish and chips one more time I will throttle someone

Preferably Jongin

>:)

**💕vivi’s dad💕**

Oh my GOD guys

[IMG Attached]

Jongin and Kyungsoo are  _ making out  _ making out someone pls save me

Can I sue them for money to bleach my eyes????

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

If that was possible I would have sued you and Luhan a long time ago

**Kim Junmyeon🐰**

Baekhyun if that was possible you and Chanyeol would be bankrupt…

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

Goodbye it was nice knowing you guys :’(

**Jongin 🧸🐶** 💞

hehe no regrets

<3

**Kyungsoo🐧**

…

<3

**HIS HIGHNESS ✨👑🙇**

*throws up on Meokmul and Huchu*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those of you who made it this far, I hope that you enjoyed the story as much as I enjoyed writing it! Check the next chapter for some fun extras and a more detailed author's note :)


	5. Author's Note

Thank you again for reading this story! I've been working on it for ~3 months now, and it was originally meant for a fic fest whose host I wasn't able to contact, so I ended up publishing it here anyways. 

I started to write this story as a way to wrap up my own last year of high school, and I'll actually be graduating this week and wanted to complete it before then :) It sort of ended up being my catharsis of sorts, and I apologize if it's not all too coherent, but I really hope you enjoyed it nonetheless!

_Fun facts!_

_-_ The cast lives in Korea, and the Korean school year ends in mid February, which means that the entire story takes place over 1-2 months (From Kyungsoo's birthday to graduation).

\- This is what I pictured Jongin wearing to the gala/formal! It's from the 2019 Gucci Cruise Show. On the other hand, I sort of just threw Kyungsoo's outfit together in my mind, haha.

\- In the scene where Kyungsoo, Baekhyun, and Sehun get their university decisions, the first letter is from Harvard and the second is from MIT. The exact wording is accurate because I copy pasted them from my own letters #Harvardrejects

\- The Tesla Roadster (Jongin's car) actually does have a cupholder, it's just the foldable kind tucked into the side of the passenger seat and can't be used when someone is sitting there. (And Jongin's is broken lol Kyungsoo = best cupholder)

I'm happy to answer any questions and all comments are appreciated c:


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